


Itinerant

by realmythology



Series: Itinerant [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (because who doesn't love that?), (but we'll get to that), Brickhouse Barnes, Bucky Barnes Has a Big Dick, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Bucky Barnes hates rainbow bagels, Bucky Barnes is an Extremely Capable Man, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nomad Steve Rogers, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Pining, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Slow Build, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers is a Sarcastic Asshole, Steve Rogers's Sadness Errands, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 07:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11352687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realmythology/pseuds/realmythology
Summary: Maybe flowers’ll grow from me, pulling everything else out of my flesh until I’m nothing but those bones, nothing but all the love I got for you. That’ll last forever, I know it.Got me all twisted-up, honey. Always did.★Steve Rogers tries to carve out a place for himself in a world where he isn't Captain America. Bucky Barnes tries to reclaim himself while paying back a debt that he can't shake.Somehow, they manage to meet in the middle.





	1. PART I. I love the ground on where he stands.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/gifts).



> this has been a labor of love, friends. what i initially intended to be a short introspective 10k or so about steve discovering himself as nomad has turned into a whole other beast. this fic is a good ~40k long, and has developed into an exercise of pining and pain. if i had my way it'd be twice as long, but unfortunately i had a deadline so consider yourselves saved from 100k of sadness. if you are not a fan of slow burn... beware. 
> 
> i'd love to thank [alby_mangroves](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Alby_Mangroves) for the inspiration of her [gorgeous](http://artgroves.tumblr.com/post/162506997269/nomad-for-itinerant-by-realmythology-and) [art](http://artgroves.tumblr.com/post/162507091689/cap-for-itinerant-by-realmythology-and). show her some love! i'd also love to thank my beautiful beta [jackie](http://littleredofhearts.tumblr.com/), who's kept me on point, inspired me endlessly, and tolerated my whining. you're the best, bby! 
> 
> **EDIT:** chapters 2 and 3 have been edited as of july 8th, 2017 to reflect canonical changes present in spiderman: homecoming. there are only minor spoilers, and nothing related to the main plot. sorry for the confusion, but i knew it'd drive me crazy if i didn't tweak the fic accordingly.
> 
> without further ado, enjoy.

#### STEVE ROGERS. 

When Steve opens his eyes, the room is silent and noon-time shadows dance across the wall. The sunlight’s inching towards him, warming his feet through the blanket, and he tries to remember when he fell asleep.

He’s groggy, unbalanced. The knowledge doesn’t come fast.

The part of the story that no one tells is that when the dust’s settled, there’s never much left for anyone to do. At least, not in this case.

With a heavy sigh, he pushes himself up and out of bed. It’s not much better, the way he slumps over when his feet hit the ground; he’s like a marionette with cut strings, elbows on his knees and head down, back bowed as he rubs at his eyes. He briefly considers tucking himself right back into bed—he doesn’t have anything to do, for once. It’s a strange, nebulous existence where there aren’t any 5 AM runs or 7 AM training sessions, where there aren’t any world-saving calls he can answer. Steve counts his heartbeats as he hangs on the edge of the bed, sleep-foggy.

He’d fallen asleep when the sun had been coming up. He remembers that now.

Steve sighs after a long moment, shaking his head at all the wasted time. He stands and pulls his arms up, fingers interlocking and head tilting back as he takes in the way lethargic muscles stretch. Half the day gone, just because he hadn’t been able to get his eyes shut on time. His ma’s a long-gone memory, but Steve can recall with perfect memory the way she’d have tutted at him for being so ungrateful for all the opportunities right in front of him. It’s a stroke of luck, to be somewhere so warm and safe, to be able to count someone like T’Challa among his friends.

Even though, he can’t help but notice, he has fewer and fewer friends every day.

★

“You sure you wanna do this alone?”

Sam’s one of the last of the team still there with him.

They’d all stayed close together for a couple of weeks after Steve had broken them out of the raft, huddled up in T’Challa’s fortress to lick their wounds. The king was generous and had more than enough room for them, but they’d dispersed soon enough. Hiding had never really been in any of their natures, after all.

Clint had disappeared first, no doubt to wherever Natasha already was. Scott had lingered for a while before he’d left too, giving Steve a wry smile and saying he’d always wanted to see the world. For all that Wanda had stayed, she wasn’t really _there_ either; she holed herself up in her room most days, and she was quiet and drawn when Steve saw her. Her eyes were glassy and luminous; sometimes he thought she wasn’t all there, that she was seeing things they couldn’t. He didn’t know what to say to make it better, so he didn’t say anything for fear of making it worse. She’d turned down Clint’s offer to leave with him, and none of them knew what to make of it.

Sam was the only one who’d seemed unaffected, but every now and then his eyes got faraway and his jaw got tight, and Steve didn’t need to ask to know that he was thinking of his family.

When he’d decided to leave, Steve told himself that it was because he refused to hide out like a rat, leeching off T’Challa’s hospitality and patience without doing anything to return it. That was easier to face than the thought that he was running away from acknowledging that he was the reason Sam couldn’t even call his family to tell them he was still alive, Clint and Scott couldn’t see their kids, Wanda was pale and drawn, and Bucky—

Well. He wasn’t going to think about that.

Steve shakes the thought away and gives Sam a smile, pushing himself back into the present as he zips up his backpack. The way Sam stands there with his arms crossed over his chest tells Steve that he hadn’t been fooled by the forced cheer.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You’re already in this whole mess because of me—”

“I _know_ you didn’t just say that like I haven’t made all those choices for myself.” Sam stares pointedly at him and Steve has the grace to look abashed. “I’m going to ask you again, and this time try not to be too self-absorbed when you answer, alright?” He waits for a nod like a schoolteacher, and Steve rolls his eyes but complies anyway. There’s a reluctant smile on his face anyway. “Good. Now: do you really want to spend the next however long alone? You know you don’t have to.”

God, where had he heard that before? Steve’s smile loses some of its amusement when he nods. “Yeah, Sam. I really want this.”

The other man watches him for a long moment before he nods again. Sam’s eyes unsettle Steve sometimes, like he can see through all his bullshit to the soft underbelly of him, and it’s as comforting as it is _fucking horrible_.

“Yeah, alright.” Sam doesn’t sound convinced but he doesn’t push either, stepping away from the wall. Steve averts his eyes as he yanks on a jacket. “But you’re gonna call if you need anything, right? You’re not going to be stupid about this.”

“When’m I ever stupid?”

“Seriously?”

“Sam, c’mon,” Steve tries weakly, rubbing the back of his neck. For all that he knows Natasha loves him like family, she can’t read him half as well as Sam can. No one can. They stare each other down for a moment, brown to blue, before Sam folds. His features soften a bit and Steve feels himself relax with it. Sam’s resigned when he speaks, like he knew this was going to happen but he couldn’t help trying to stop it anyway.

“Yeah, okay. Just be careful out there. Gimme a shout if you need anything.”

“You gonna stay here?”

“For now, yeah. It’s the safest place in the world right now, and since you don’t want anyone covering your stupid ass—”

“ _Hey_ —”

“—I figured I’d stay with the kid. She needs a friendly face around.”

“We all do,” Steve replies on autopilot, even though it’s a stupid damn thing to say after announcing that he’s going to be heading out on his own and that he’s _totally okay_ with it. The look Sam levels him for a moment is proof enough of that, but he doesn’t push.

“Yeah, Cap. We do.”

★

Wakanda’s cloyingly hot.

The jungle around T’Challa’s fortress is lush and the humidity is so thick that a knife could probably cut through it like butter. Steve would’ve loved it if he didn’t feel a lasting chill with him wherever he went.

He’d loved Brooklyn in the summertime, particularly because he’d appreciated that his breaths came clear and easy and his chest didn’t rattle so bad. Bucky had _hated_ the summers, though, always bitching about the humidity. But he’d had the right to complain more than anyone with the way he pulled 12-hour shifts at the docks without so much as a peep, so Steve hadn’t mocked him about it. Much.

(The memory comes to him at the thought: Bucky stripping off his shirt and tossing it aside, skin pink from heat and exertion, torso padded with overworked muscle. Dunking his head into the running sink and groaning when the cold water soaked through his damp hair. Standing up and rubbing his hands through it, letting the water run down his neck to his chest—

Anyway. Yeah. He’d liked the heat.

He buries the memory and his guilt at lusting over the younger version of someone who’d rather be frozen like a popsicle than be with him in any capacity. Back to the present.)

Walking through the forests is a little lonely at first, leaving him with nothing but his thoughts. Since that’s not good for anyone, Steve makes his way to the nearest city without thinking much about it.

He realizes his mistake as soon as he starts walking through the streets, though. He stands out there, stark as a ghost. Both literally and metaphorically.

It becomes obvious pretty quickly as he makes his way through Birnin Zana that he would have had much better luck not looking _incredibly fucking suspicious_ if he’d stuck to the lush foliage of the forests. He’s washed-out and drawn where everyone else looks like they’ve been painted in rich, deep colors. He idly wonders if he’s just going crazy or if people in Wakanda also _smile_ a lot more than he’s used to. It’s nice to see people so happy, even if it just makes him feel more awkward.

He doesn’t really belong around people like that. A mean, nasty part of him whispers that just being around them would dull their vibrance.

It’s too bad, because a part of Steve had wanted to enjoy the chance to travel through Wakanda. It’s undeniably a gorgeous place, somewhere few people outside of its citizens have the privilege of seeing. Even with all the second glances and curious looks he gets walking through the capital’s streets, what he notices most is how much T’Challa’s people glow with good health and comfort, how some of the tech he sees just in passing probably would have made Tony drool.

He lingers just to soak some of that in, buying some food at a small restaurant just for something to do. The waitress is nice and speaks perfect English with an accent that sounds musical. The food is nothing like he’s ever had, and it’s good enough that he orders seconds.

While he waits, Steve tries watching people through the window. There’s a hell of a lot to see, and he likes making up stories for the passerby in his head. Once upon a time, he thinks he would’ve loved spending hours mixing the right colors to capture each of them perfectly: vibrant yellows, jewel-greens, sky-blues. But then he accidentally makes eye contact a couple of times, and it’s uncomfortable enough that he gives up on it.

He leaves soon after that, his hopes for the day feeling disproportionately shot from the weird looks he’d gotten through the window. He can picture Natasha rolling her eyes at him for being so _sensitive_ , but goddamn it, it wasn’t like anything was tying him to the restaurant or the city or even the country. No one needed him there, that’d been made pretty clear. No one needed him anywhere.

He’s still thinking about the city when he settles in at the nearest safe house hours later, a niggling bit of unease at the back of his mind.

It had felt _foreign_ , which was the worst part of it all. Not like it was a different country, but more like it was an entirely different reality. He’d been all over the globe and he’d never felt that way.

Maybe the forests are better for him.

All the technology—those glowing screens that popped out of Kimoyo beads and the humming cars and the clean, _fresh_ city air (and how was that even _possible_?)—had just reminded him more than ever that he was painfully out of place. Wakanda thrived in a way that he’d never seen anywhere in the world, no thanks to him or any other Avenger. The place was alive and brimming with beauty in a way that just rubbed it in that everything he’d ever fought for had been— _broken._

Birnin Zana feels like a turning point, even though he thinks it shouldn’t. (It’s not like he realized anything he didn’t already know deep down.) But the memory of seeing a veritable damn Utopia and feeling so pathetically lost is enough that Steve doesn’t linger in the cities, even if the curiosity itches at him.

He’s not really fit for social interaction anyway, so it doesn’t matter; he keeps to himself, walking or running between the safe houses T’Challa had welcomed him to use. And he can keep going for a long damn time, so there’s nothing stopping him from slipping out of the country in a matter of days.

It’s just him and the forest, for miles and miles and miles.

★

The days blur together, but the nights feel like they stretch on endlessly. He lays awake and stares at the ceiling sometimes, watching the shadows shift and distort.

Sleep doesn’t come easy, the same way it didn’t when he’d first been woken up from the ice. Back then, every time he closed his eyes he’d run through a highlight reel of everything he’d lost—every _one_ he’d lost. It was a hell of a thing to die only to be brought back to life alone in the world, surrounded by ghosts everywhere he went.

Everyone but Peggy had been gone, but for that Peggy was _everywhere_. In the nation’s lasting safety, in every passing British accent, in every pretty woman with red nails, in SHIELD’s halls, in Tony’s stories.

In his mind. In his dreams.

God, he’d dreamed of her pretty smile nights on end. Sometimes he’d dreamed that they’d gotten married. Other times her lipstick’d had him jolting awake thinking of blood-splatters.

He still isn’t sure which dreams were more unsettling.

It hurt a lot more, he’d learned, to get something back only to have it yanked away again.

★

Paris is about ten times nicer now than it was in the 40s in the middle of a war, though only half as fashionable. But even all the familiar wrought-iron balconies and cafes aren’t enough to make Steve feel at peace. He feels twitchy in such a big, metropolitan city, like there’s a target painted on his back.

Luckily, he’s not alone for once.

“Well, you’ve definitely looked better, I’ll give you that.” Natasha takes a sip of her espresso with a smile as the waitress leaves with Steve’s coffee order.

“Hey,” Steve protests, skimming a self-conscious hand over his front. He’d actually attempted to look decent when coming to meet her; he’d stopped in a hotel to shave and shower off the miles he’d traveled. He’d even bought a new shirt after he’d heard that she and Clint were around.

Natasha looks beautiful, but then again, she always does. Her fiery curls have turned into a short black bob and her lips are red. She’d taken off her big sunglasses briefly to greet him, but they’re back on now. He can see his reflection in them as she smiles at him, and he feels the distant urge to draw her. Natasha’s an excellent muse.

“Hey, you said you wanted me to be truthful with you.”

“Maybe a little less than _that_.”

“Mhmm. I’ll keep that in mind.”

It’s fluff, but Steve feels good anyway. It’s been a while since he’d talked to someone that wasn’t a clerk at a hostel or grocery store.

“I’ve missed you, Nat,” he admits, and the honesty surprises even him. Natasha’s generous lips quirk in that certain way of hers—the one that means she’s happy.

“I’ve missed you too, you know. I told you twice that you should come and be with us.”

“I know.”

“It’s not sustainable, Cap. You can’t keep bouncing around on your own like this, nowhere you can really be safe.” There’s concern in her husky voice, and Steve hates it. He averts his eyes, and she goes on. He’d forgotten that she’s not all that great at small-talk. “I have a place up in Utrecht, we’re staying there. Barton and I. You know you’re welcome to join us.”

“I know.”

“... But you’re not going to,” Natasha observes, and Steve grimaces. “I just want to know you’re being smart about this.”

That makes his frown deepen. As much as Steve loves her, Natasha’s got an annoying tendency to think she always knows best.

“I _think_ I can take care of myself, Nat.” Steve sighs and rubs a hand over his face as the coffee’s set down in front of him. Natasha doesn’t so much as twitch, looking flawless with that perfect dark hair and those perfect painted lips. How the hell does she look so put together when she’s on the run? “Look, can we just—not? I just wanted to talk to you for a while.”

“Okay,” she replies, shrugging. “I know you can take care of yourself, you know.” Her lips do something he can’t really understand, an odd little twitch. “It’s just that I know you’re...”

“I’m...?” Steve raises his brows as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“Hurting,” she replies seriously. “I know how much Barnes means to you, I already told you that.” Her voice softens. “I heard that he went back into the ice.”

“Oh.” Logically, he knew she’d known. Clint would’ve told her. Maybe it’d been hoping too much to think that Natasha wouldn’t want to talk about it with him; she was famously terrible at keeping her nose out of his business. Usually he liked it because it made him feel cared about, even though her wheedling and matchmaking weren’t really welcome. It was the thought that counted. “Yeah, he did.”

“How’re you holding up?”

“Fine,” Steve answers automatically, shrugging. Natasha pulls off her sunglasses at that, giving Steve a look he can’t really decipher.

“Alright,” she says, but he can tell she doesn’t believe him. He’s not lying, though; he’s not any worse for the wear than he’s ever been. “It’s not as though he could’ve picked a safer place. There’s been some suspicion, but there’s some suspicion everywhere. No one will be able to get to him in Wakanda, not that they’d even think he was there. T’Challa chasing him down in the panther suit was pretty widely-publicized.”

“It was?”

“There are a couple shaky YouTube videos of you three running through a tunnel in Berlin.”

“Huh.”

“Mhmm. He’s also a fan-favorite on social media.”

“Who?” Steve asks, feeling a little lost.

“T’Challa, obviously.” Natasha rolls her eyes, but her lips are upturned again. She’s amused with him, if nothing else. “#HailTheKing is a pretty popular hashtag. You should _see_ the things some girls tweet about him.” She tilts her head consideringly. “Some guys too.”

“Wow, okay. I did _not_ need to know that. The things people publicly post these days... Jesus.”

“Aww.”

“Look, I’m just _saying_ —”

“And yet they’re not the ones whose twitter accounts were suspended,” Natasha cuts in smartly with a wicked gleam in her eyes. Steve groans. Tony and Natasha had pestered him into making a verified twitter account the year before, and since it’d been after Ultron, Maria had suggested that it would be good for some damage control. So he’d gotten himself a damn twitter, even though he’d privately thought that a couple of the gag Captain America accounts were a hell of a lot funnier than anything he’d be able to say.

He’d lasted all of a week and four posts on the application before Maria had discreetly made it known that he should immediately stop tweeting.

“It wasn’t _suspended_ , Maria just told me that I shouldn’t threaten people online.”

“It was in the news for _weeks_.”

“He called you a—!” Steve cuts himself off and makes a sharp hand-motion, forgotten anger rearing its head the moment he thought about it. “That’s no fucking way to talk about a _lady_.”

Natasha looks touched. “I know, but _you_ know I’ve heard a thousand times worse than that. It’s okay, Steve.”

“It’s _really_ not.” People said so much dumb shit when they were protected by the anonymity of their computer screens, things folks _never_ would have said back home. Steve always tried to see the best in people, but _Christ_ did they make it hard. That wasn’t even getting into some of the things he’d read them saying about Sam and Rhodes. And Wanda, who was barely out of her goddamn _teens_.

So, yeah, maybe Maria had made a good call there.

“People never change. You come to expect it eventually, and their words can’t hurt you.” Natasha shakes her head, an artificial little smile on her lips. Steve sighs.

“Come on, Nat. We both know that’s not true.”

She’s quiet for a long moment before replying, her own eyes dropping. “It’s easier to say it is. You start believing in it yourself.”

“Who do I have to punch?” Steve half-jokes, not liking the look on her face. It makes Natasha crack a smile, at least.

“Tony. But I hear you already did that a couple times over.”

“What’d he say?”

“... Doesn’t matter.” She meets Steve’s eyes, and not for the first time, he feels a pang of ache in his chest. Fuck, but he’s going to miss her when he leaves again. “You still trust me, right? Even after...” She doesn’t elaborate. Steve’s response is still immediate.

“Always.” It’s there again, that contained little smile. Natasha’s hazel-green eyes flicker between both of Steve’s, and after a moment she reaches out to rest her small hand over his on the table.

“I’m sorry about Barnes,” she says, and Steve has no idea where it comes from. She continues despite his clear confusion. “I know why you fought so hard for him. I know how hard you searched for him. And that you have to miss him like hell right now.”

“I don’t—”

“Steve.” Her voice is firm, but not sharp. He shuts up immediately. Natasha takes her hand off Steve’s to toy with her necklace, a tiny arrow pendant he’d seen her wearing a couple times. “I _know_.”

Well.

He’s silent for a long moment before he drops his head, raking a tired hand through his hair. “I never wanted to ask about that,” he confides quietly, and Natasha just gives him an enigmatic smile.

“I never would’ve said anything,” she jokes, and Steve chuckles tiredly. “Did you two ever...?” She raises her brows. Steve’s smile gets strained; he can feel it.

“He’s not like that. He likes—just girls.” He can feel himself grimacing. _It’s fine. Stop that_. “He likes them a lot. So. Yeah.”

He’d hoped and prayed and wished for years, but it hadn’t changed anything. Bucky had loved his girls and they’d all loved him right back; he’d gone out on dates often, and the worst part had been that it’d always been with respectable, marriageable girls. Bucky Barnes of the 1940s had just been that kind of guy, and anyone would’ve been happy to marry their daughter off to a stand-up man like him. It had been goddamn awful, selfishly hating that the friendship that had shaped his life would change fundamentally when Bucky finally found the girl he wanted to marry.

But Steve’d made his peace with it a long time ago, and he was more than happy just to have Bucky’s friendship. He still is.

He _is_. Really.

But more than that, no one _knew_. Steve has an inkling that maybe Sam had realized, but if he had then he’d kept it to himself. It feels weird to have his deepest, darkest secret out in the open between them in the middle of a city neither of them lives in, Natasha’s knowing eyes watching him try not to squirm.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha answers honestly. “What about Sharon, then? I heard that she went underground after Berlin. There’s only one reason that would have happened. She helped you, right? Got your gear for you?” Natasha’s eyes are shrewd, and Steve’s impressed despite himself at the deduction.

“Yeah, she did.”

“Awfully nice of her.”

“Sharon’s heart’s in the right place. She knew something was off about the situation.” Steve shrugs.

“She’s also related to Peggy,” Natasha notes, and Steve bristles. But she doesn’t comment on how strange his fixation with Peggy’s niece is, just looks at him expectantly. Steve remembers belatedly that sometimes Natasha, no matter how sharp, doesn’t always understand certain social norms—ones like _maybe it’s a little strange to date the niece of your long-lost love_. “That’s good, right? Similarities. And she’s cute,” Natasha continues at his silence.

“She is,” Steve relents, because that’s the only part he wants to address. Natasha looks pleased again.

“You should text her. She’s in Europe too, right now. It’s not a big continent.”

“Maybe.” He shrugs, not wanting to commit. Natasha doesn’t comment, finishing her drink and sliding her sunglasses back on.

“Good. Come on, Clint’s probably waiting on us now. Stay the night, we’ll have dinner. It’ll be nice.”

There’s not much room for argument, and Steve finds himself smiling a little.

“Yeah, okay.”

★

“Can’t sleep?”

Steve looks up to see Clint in the doorway, wearing sleep pants and a t-shirt. According to Natasha, this is his natural state but Steve’s only seen him like it a couple times. For a master assassin, he looks awfully comfortable and unassuming.

Steve doesn’t let it fool him, because Clint had managed to sneak up on him in the middle of the night. The apartment’s so quiet he’d have been able to hear a pin drop, but he still couldn’t hear Clint Barton coming.

“Nah.” He’d been gazing out the full-length window, feeling listless. Utrecht is a beautiful city, and the apartment is surprisingly nice; there were enough details of Clint and Natasha both scattered around that Steve can’t help but wonder how often they come there. He stands up from where he’d been sitting on the ground, and Clint comes closer. “Is Natasha sleeping?”

“Yeah, she’s out like a light.” Steve can’t picture it, but he’ll take Clint’s word. “Want some coffee?”

“It’s 2 in the morning,” Steve replies doubtfully, and Clint gives him a dry look. “Yeah, okay. Sure.” He follows Clint awkwardly to the kitchen and sits down by the counter to watch him fuck around with the coffee pot. He doesn’t bother to turn the lights on, but then again, they can both see pretty well in the dark. Steve speaks up again after a minute. “Why aren’t _you_ asleep?”

“Got a showtune stuck in my head,” Clint replies without missing a beat. Steve’s almost positive he’s lying, but he says it so easily that he can’t call the other out on it. So Steve just hums noncommittally.

“It’s good to see you both,” Steve admits.

“Yeah. Nat’s been worried as hell about you,” Clint replies, spilling her secrets without a care.

“And you haven’t been?”

“Should I have been?” The archer shrugs, broad shoulders pulling at his threadbare t-shirt. “Nat stresses out over people she feels responsible for more than she shows. She doesn’t like a lot of people much, so when she does they mean a lot.” The coffee machine starts spluttering out coffee, and Clint raises an empty mug to Steve in a mock-salute. “But you’re a grown-up, and none of us is your keeper. You’re our leader, no reason to fuck with that dynamic.”

“I’m not really the leader of anyone anymore,” Steve answers drily, but Clint shakes his head.

“You are, though. So.”

“You make that sound so easy.”

“You’re letting simple things get complicated.” Clint leans against the counter and crosses his arms, the shadows deepening the lines of his face. Steve tries to look at him through Natasha’s eyes, to see what she sees that creates such an unwavering devotion in the man. It’s surreal how fast this conversation got away from him. “You go, we follow. Simple. Just because you’re taking a break from leading us anywhere doesn’t mean that all poofs into nothing.”

“And you still want to follow me after that shit-show?” Steve asks, because he’s a dumb masochist.

“Are you talking about us all beating the snot out of each other in the airport or the sea-prison from hell?” Well, when he puts it like that. Steve can feel a frown taking over his face. “Or when your BFF went on vacation and you emotionally checked out?”

“ _What_?” Steve snaps, offended. Clint shushes him, pointing sharply at the door behind which Natasha is, presumably, sleeping.

“Hey, I’m not blaming you, man. I don’t care. Your business is your business.” He pours them both coffee, handing Steve a mug. Even in the dark, he can see that it says ‘MIGHT BE VODKA’ on it, all capital letters, and he knows without asking that Clint bought it for Natasha. “I’m just saying that you haven’t been all there in a while. And that’s okay.” Clint shrugs, drinking deeply. Then he sputters, jerking the cup away from his face. “Aw, _fuck,_ that’s hot! Ugh.”

“I’ve been around,” Steve answers once Clint’s stopped making sad noises, a little defensive. Then he hesitates. “Haven’t I?”

“I dunno, have you?” Clint shrugs. He’s still holding the cup; Steve admires his determination. “All I know is that you’ve never been the cheeriest apple pie guy in the world—ruined all my childhood dreams, by the way—”

“Look here, _son_ —”

“ _Ruined_ all my childhood dreams,” Clint insists, barreling on, and Steve can’t muffle a laugh. It feels normal to laugh through chatting about how fucked in the head he is with Clint, god help him. “But the point is that after you pulled us out of Ross’s personalized little white-walled hell, you haven’t been yourself. Been missing that certain Captain America _je ne sais quoi_.”

The archer’s joking, he is, but he’s stone-cold serious under his sass. “Is it that obvious?” Steve asks with a wry smile, feeling tired in a way that has nothing to do with the hour.

“It is.”

“It is,” Natasha’s voice intones, scratchy from sleep. Steve turns to look at her.

The paleness of her skin stands out in the darkness. She looks vulnerable, bare-faced in a black tank top and sweatpants. Her red hair, freed from the wig, is a little wild around her shoulders. Steve remembers how disproportionately relieved he’d been when she’d pulled off the wig after they reached the safe house.

“Hey, Nat. Did we wake you up?” Clint asks, and she shakes her head. It makes her hair fall over her shoulders like a mane. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen it unstyled.

“It’s fine. Didn’t want to miss the party.” She hides a yawn behind her hand, leaning against the doorway. “You boys having fun without me?”

“You know it,” Steve tries, but his joke falls flat. He’d never been the best at jokes, after all. He’s more of a snappy one-liner kind of guy. But he thinks he sees something soften in Natasha’s eyes, and he realizes that whatever he’s feeling is probably written all over his damn face.

“Well, we can’t have that.” She pads over, just as silent as Clint had been. After a moment of hesitation, she wraps an arm around Steve’s shoulders from behind and rests her head against his shoulder.

“Clint says I’ve been gone,” Steve tells her quietly. “And you agreed.” He hates himself a little for hoping she’ll assure him that he was hearing things. That she’ll comfort him and say he’s been doing a good job. It makes him feel like a kid asking for a pat on the head and a gold star.

“I did,” she replies, not moving. “That’s not such a bad thing, Steve.”

 _Bullshit_. He manages not to say that, though. “Yeah?”

“We all need to take a break sometimes.”

“You don’t.”

“What do you think this has been?” Natasha asks patiently, and Steve shakes his head.

“I don’t gotta take a break from all you. You’re my _team_. I should’ve been there, I should—” Steve cuts himself off, realizing something. “Is that why you all scattered?”

“Cap, you couldn’t have kept us all together in Wakanda if you’d tried,” Clint replies, firm. “It was nice for, like, a week. Then I started feeling antsy as hell. Don’t like being cooped up. That doesn’t mean we’re not all ready to drop whatever we’re doing the minute you’re ready to bring us back together.” He sighs, setting his cup down against the counter with a quiet _click_. “C’mon. We always come when you call, don’t we? Some faith, Cap. It’d be nice.”

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Consider yourself forgiven,” Clint replies magnanimously, and there’s a beat before he continues. “And that goes for whatever dumb shit you think’s your fault.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Steve closes his eyes and bows his head. They stay like that for a while, the seconds and minutes ticking by. Natasha’s small body is a warm weight against his back, and the quiet sounds of Clint sipping at his coffee break the still silence. Steve feels safer caught between Natasha’s unspoken support and Clint’s unflinching honesty than he has in a long, long time.

★

Nat manages to wheedle him into staying in Utrecht for three full days, and thankfully there aren’t any more embarrassingly emotional moments between them all before he packs up his bags and heads off on his own. They have dinner a few times; they talk about the team and their plans. His teammates seem content. All in all, it’s nice.

Steve misses Natasha and Clint fiercely after he leaves.

Germany isn’t familiar at all, and he doesn’t linger there anyway after what happened in Berlin. He goes north, searching for something he knows in advance he won’t find.

The days seem to wind on and on for him as he travels, each one like the last. They vary a little bit; he switches up his breakfasts a little, and sometimes he stays in little hotels instead of hostels. No one recognizes Steve because of the beard that’s overtaken his face again from weeks of living rough, and he keeps himself bundled despite the summertime.

He decides to stop in Finland for a while, more out of weariness than actual exhaustion. The first couple days are spent finding the perfect little town to settle down in, which is easy enough—after all, who’s going to find him in Konginkangas, with all its little rural buildings? The population barely tops a couple hundred and it’s in the middle of nowhere, which that suits him just fine.

Steve manages to rent a room in an old couple’s home, and after another couple days he picks up a short-term manual labor job to fill up his thinning wallet. He stops by the bathroom a couple times a day to splash some water under his armpits and over his back, trying to keep up the illusion of being another regular guy. It doesn’t matter because his boss doesn’t look twice at him, just nods in satisfaction and gives him a raise for how long he can work. It’s not hard work, not for him, but it keeps his mind occupied well enough. The other workers laugh at his terrible attempts at Finnish over their lunch break, and he wonders if this easy, tired camaraderie is what Bucky felt when he worked down at the docks.

So, Steve settles in fairly easily. He likes it in Konginkangas, even though he’d never known anything about Finland other than that Wanda liked a couple of their metal bands. He gets dinner at the same place almost daily, and helps the twenty-something waitress practice her English because his Finnish really _is_ terrible. He goes to bed feeling a peaceful sort of melancholy, falling asleep to the tune of Gustav’s snoring through the thin walls.

It’s not much, but it’s better than being alone.

★

“No, over there is better.”

Even as Steve restrains a sigh, he can feel himself smiling. He indulges Enni by pushing her couch back into its original position, taking care to act as though its weight feels substantial to him. He’s getting better and better at faking a normal person’s strength, which is harder than he thought it would be. “How’s that?” he asks, standing up and perching his hands on his hips like it’d been a hardship.

Enni hums, the way she purses her lips bringing the wrinkles around her mouth into sharper relief. She’s about eighty, Steve privately guesses. Maybe older. “It will do,” she decides finally, and motions for him to sit. “I will bring tea. We’ll talk.”

“Alright.” She’s already shuffled away, and Steve takes a seat on the couch. All around him, the living room is full to bursting with memories. Pictures of Gustav and Enni when they were young, when they were middle-aged, when they were old; pictures of their children and grandchildren who’d all long-since moved away, most to Helsinki and some to new, foreign lands. Enni speaks English because two of her sons-in-law are English, and she likes practicing with Steve. Her accent’s thick but her grammar’s spot-on, which is more than Steve can say about any of the languages he speaks.

Steve doesn’t admit it even to himself, but the attention makes him feel a little fuzzy inside.

“With milk?” Enni asks as she heads back in, tea tray firmly in her thin hands. The first time she’d carried tea in for Steve he’d immediately stood up and tried to take it from her; the glare he’d gotten for it made him wise up and never try it again.

“As usual.”

“Of course.” She smiles as she sets it down, then perches herself on the couch beside him. “How long have you been with us, Sam? Eleven days?”

“Twelve,” Steve corrects, internally wincing again at the name. It had been a stupid knee-jerk reaction when he’d realized he’d have to _introduce_ himself to people, and Sam had prodded him relentlessly about it via text. He kind of wishes he’d planned ahead. And that he hadn’t felt the urge to be honest with his wingman about it.

“You still have not said how long you plan to stay.”

“I...” Steve trails off as he accepts his tea, cradling it in his hands. They look awfully big and rough around the little porcelain cup. “I’m not sure.”

“It’s alright.” Enni seems unbothered by his answer, the same one he’s given her more than once since he moved his meager belongings into the guest room. She pops a piece of Pantteri into her mouth, and Steve hides his grimace. He’d made the mistake of accepting her offer of trying them back when he’d first moved in. She’s probably the only person in the world who takes licorice-flavored candy with her tea. “You still haven’t said what brought you so far from your Alabama.”

(Sam had howled with laughter about that one too. Steve had tried to think of the _least_ New York-y place he could, and that had been what’d fallen out of his mouth.)

“I was looking for somewhere to settle down for a while,” Steve answers honestly, taking a sip of his tea. He doesn’t meet Enni’s eyes, dark and weathered. “I’ve been traveling around for a while.”

“I thought so.”

“Really?” he raises his head, frowning.

“You seem lost. Like you...” She struggles a moment to find the words, white-pale brows furrowing. “Like you are looking for something... but you do not know what it is?”

“That’s...” Steve thinks about it, eyes dropping down to their tea. “That’s probably right.”

Enni looks at Steve for a long moment while he fixes his eyes on her wedding picture on the mantle. He can feel her eyes on him, the little frown creasing her mouth. Eventually, he sees her shake her head out of the corner of his eye. “Everything comes eventually. You cannot force it, you know.” Enni’s hand is paper-thin and gentle on his. “I hope you find what you are looking for, Sam.”

“I do too,” Steve murmurs, giving her hand a squeeze. It’s another moment of many, pleasant and dull and full of dozens of things left unsaid, slipping through the cracks of time.

★

It doesn’t last.

Barely three weeks later he stops a guy from stealing from a fruit vendor and the ruckus it causes isn’t worth it. The wrist under his hand breaks and the man starts screaming; Steve recoils.

Everyone’s eyes are on him, and Steve suddenly feels like they can see through his beard and his bulky jacket, that he’s given himself away. He can feel his place in the little town being torn right out of his hands, the careful foundation he’d been laying to stay maybe a couple more months splintering like the arm he’d gripped just this side of too tight. Weeks of work, undone by a moment of thoughtlessness, by forgetting that he had no business trying to fit in with normal people.

Steve steals away in the night, only leaving Gustav and Enni an apologetic goodbye note. It’s unreal how easy it is to cut his ties to people.

By the next day, it feels like staying in Konginkangas had been nothing but a fever dream.

Had he really spent a month in a tiny Finnish town? He must have, Steve thinks as he gazes out the window of the train, because he’s still traveling through the country. He can still remember the sound of roosters waking him in the morning and tea in the afternoon, dinners shared listening to his hosts talk about their family. It’s the curse of his mind: he always remembers everything.

But nothing feels real again, like he’s a ghost. It’s the same way he felt in Wakanda, like he’s a ghost just floating along without being able to touch anything. It feels like he can’t connect to anywhere he goes. He doesn’t even recognize his own reflection in the glass, drawn and thickly bearded as he is.

Had he really gotten so disconnected from himself that he barely recognizes his own damn face?

And he _knows_ it’s just him, because other people seem to be so full of emotion it’s like they’re overflowing. Full of laughter and love and delight and defiance, all things Steve knows he knew well not so long ago too. There are hints of it everywhere. The littlest things make him stop and think.

Steve ponders that on the train, watching the countryside pass before his eyes and letting his mind wander. He watches the trees and the animals with a vague sense of interest, thinking of Clint’s farm. Some people loved that sort of thing, but he’s a classic Brooklynite through and through; he can’t see the appeal. Maybe Clint can’t either, considering how happy he’d looked to be in a European shoebox apartment with Natasha.

They pass by another town and he sees the Finnish flag plastered over the sign as well as waving cheerfully in the wind above it. The thing about Scandinavians is that their flags are _everywhere_. Steve hadn’t ever really thought about it back in the States, but it’s so much more obvious in a foreign country that he feels bittersweet when he sees it.

He feels like a nomad; no home calling him back, no country he’d want to serve.

Steve gets off the train in Stockholm, breathing in the crisp air. He stands on the station for a long minute, pondering everything and nothing before he goes to get himself a haircut.

He checks in at the nearest hotel, all his worldly possessions tucked into the backpack slung over his shoulder. In the morning, he shaves and tugs on a buttery-smooth leather jacket that makes him feel the slightest bit more _himself_.

The sun’s rising as Steve leaves the hotel, gaze turned firmly south. He needs to find an anchor, otherwise he knows he’ll wander the world forever looking for something he knows he won’t find.

It’s sad, really, how deep he latches on. He wonders if it’s because of the serum amplifying his emotions or if he was just always this way, but he’s walked through half of Europe with its centuries-old buildings and old-soul charm and he hasn’t felt a single twinge of emotion. He’s saved it all, locked it up and tucked it away so tight that he can’t even find the key anymore.

Steve tugs out his cellphone and scrolls through his contacts, hitting “call” when he finds the one he’s looking for.

★★★

★★★

#### BUCKY BARNES.

Slowly, in stages, Bucky wakes up. He doesn’t panic; he knows he’s safe. He knows before he even opens his eyes, a luxury he hasn’t felt since...

He can’t even remember.

No one is pushing and shoving at him to wake up, no one is jabbing him with any needles or dousing him in water to force him into alertness. He gets to take stock of his limbs on his own, curling his fingers and arching his feet slow and catlike. Easy, hardly any stiffness. They’d woken him up _right_ , whoever they were—ah, Wakandan doctors, right. Who else?

Bucky doesn’t want to open his eyes just yet, even though he knows everyone in the room is probably aware he’s up—and there _are_ other people in the room, he can hear their quiet shuffles and keyboard-clicking, their muted conversation. He wants to cling to the almost-dreams that he’d had between unfreezing and actually waking, already slow and nebulous and faraway. He thinks his dreams might’ve been blue like the sky. That’s nice. He hasn’t had blue dreams in a long damn while, he’d deserved a break.

Bucky opens his eyes and sees white, sharp and awake.

He registers that he’s lying on a soft bed, and further inspection into the odd fluidity of his limbs tells him that he feels _warmed_ all the way through. That means that they’d woken him up in slow and careful without yanking him straight out of cryo and expecting him to take it without bitching like the perfect little wind-up soldier he was. Just like they’d talked about. It had seemed like a weird question at the time, _‘how do you want to be woken up from your little freezer-nap, Sgt. Barnes?’_ but fuck, is he grateful for it now. White walls and considerate treatment, no brain-scrambling chairs anywhere to be seen; he’d known from the moment he regained consciousness that he was in Wakanda because HYDRA had never been half so accommodating.

Fuckers.

“Sergeant Barnes,” a lilting voice addresses, and Bucky turns his gaze to the side. A female doctor is approaching him, dressed in white like everything around her. Her lips are smiling. Bucky waits for the panic to start again, but it doesn’t. He feels calm. Tired as all hell, but calm. He’d thought the doctors might be another issue, but he recognizes her immediately; Dr. Njengu had been one of the physicians he’d talked to about going back under safely. She’s a tiny thing, barely reaching his shoulder even with her wild coiling curls, but her eyes are sharp and vibrant. Bucky had liked her immediately when they’d met, enough to trust her with researching how to fix his brain.

“Doctor,” he greets, clearing his throat when it comes out croaky. Dr. Njengu’s smile widens and she glances at his vitals, nodding in satisfaction when their eyes meet.

“I’m glad you remember me, Sergeant. Welcome back. How are you feeling?”

“Like I just got unfrozen,” Bucky replies wryly. “Alright, just a little tired.” He sighs and pushes himself up on his elbows so that he’s not on his back when trying to have a damn conversation with a lady. Dr. Njengu floats closer but doesn’t intervene, so he figures sitting up isn’t going to kill him. “What day is it?”

“It is September 26th, 2016,” she informs, and Bucky’s brows shoot all the way up.

“It’s only been four _months_?” He’d expected to be under for—well, he hadn’t actually thought about how long it would be, but he’d assumed (and maybe, in his darkest moments when thinking about going back under, hoped) years.

“Yes, and I assure you we have been working very hard on finding a solution to your problems. Here,” she adds, pouring him a glass of water. Bucky accepts it with quiet thanks and takes a sip. Cool, crisp, and without even the faintest hint of chemical involvement.

Bucky really, _really_ likes Wakanda.

“As I was saying, we have a few ideas for how we can help you.” Dr. Njengu watches Bucky with a look he can’t decipher, but at least it’s friendly. “Did you have much of a chance to speak with the Avengers back in May?”

“You mean when we were trying to pummel each other into the pavement?” Bucky asks, and it’s a testament to his doctor’s professionalism that her expression doesn’t change.

“Yes, exactly. Your team, the ones who were detained after the fight. Are you familiar with them?”

“Just Steve. And Wilson, I guess,” Bucky replies with a shrug, already not interested in guessing as to Dr. Njengu’s motives behind her questioning anymore. “Why d’you ask, Doc?”

“Well, since you ask...” She smiles, all bright teeth and deep-chocolate painted lips, and she suddenly looks a few years younger. Almost... Excited. “We had an idea.”

★

“Is this alright?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s comfortable?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember, we can stop if you want to.”

“Wanda...”

“Shh, I am just reminding you.”

“Guys, tell Wanda that I’m _fine_.”

Bucky wonders if whatever Steve’s been telling Wanda about him is what’s made her treat him like a damn baby bird. As sweet as her concern is, he’s more than capable of dealing with a little unpleasantness—after all, he’s spent the past few decades dealing with a _lot_ of it from much less friendly sources. Why should this be anything new?

The plan is to combine neurological stimuli with Wanda’s magic. Bucky had understood the first part when Dr. Njengu sat him down with T’Challa and Wanda and explained all the minutiae of what they would do: it was a complicated process full of lots of technical talk, but he was familiar with people zapping his brain in hopes of changing its chemistry. ( _Ha ha_. He wasn’t funny; the looks he’d gotten for that comment told him as much.) The part he hadn’t really known what to do with had been that the brain-altering stimuli didn’t come from electricity or chemicals, but from Wanda’s _magic_.

Magic.

Bucky hadn’t had the chance back in May to fully appreciate all the things the kid could do with those glowing hands of hers, but he’d decided to trust her anyway due to the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

He catches Wanda’s determined face out of the corner of his eye, trailing his gaze behind her to see Sam leaning back against the wall. T’Challa’s there as well, shadowing Dr. Njengu. Frankly, Bucky had just been a humbled how much a goddamn _king of a country_ was willing to spend time personally checking up on him. Apparently King T’Challa of Wakanda doesn’t brush off the feeling of _‘oops I almost murdered you’_ as easily as the rest of them do. Honestly, in retrospect, the almost-murder isn’t really that big of a deal even though T’Challa’s come closer than anyone else in over 70 years in his attempts. But every time Bucky tries to make that more clear, he gets a polite smile and a shrug-off. Bucky honestly has no idea how to make this up to the man at this point. All the kindness he keeps getting leaves him feeling itchy and uncomfortable. God, these people are good to him.

Except for Sam. He’s an asshole, and Bucky tells him as much, but he secretly likes it. Sam reminds him of that nebulous _home_ he thinks he knew once upon a time, all straight-outta-New-York snark.

“Are you ready?” Dr. Njengu’s voice cuts through Bucky’s internal monologue, and he nods. He’s laying on a comfortable bed with soft white sheets, much like the one he’d woken up on. He’s still in their hospital ward, though he’d been moved to a different room away from the cryo tank—despite his insistence that it’d be smarter to keep him close to it just in case. But everyone seemed to be sure as hell that their idea would work, so Bucky doesn’t comment on it again.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Ready.” Bucky sneaks another peek at Wanda in time to see her confident little nod. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes just as a red glow begins to take over her slim little hands. The sticky things on his forehead measuring his neural responses itch. That’s what he focuses on as he breathes through the leaden nervousness in his stomach.

(The real secret is: he’s not ready. He’ll never be ready, not really. Sweat begins to bead at his forehead.)

Dr. Njengu’s voice rings out in the room, perfect Russian intonation.

“ _Zhelaniye_.”

Oh, he longs. How he longs.

Bucky closes his eyes and tries to breathe as Wanda’s fingertips brush his face, crackling with energy.

★

“So.”

Bucky’s eyes slide to the side to see Wilson, the last person to leave the room. For someone who’d basically claimed the place of his sworn enemy or something, the fella looks awfully at home in his room. Bucky doesn’t care. He’s too damn tired to complain about anything, so he just grunts and closes his eyes.

The thing is, he hadn’t expected the session to _work_. He still isn’t sure how it had, because the things Wanda’s capable of make not a single damn lick of sense to him, but he’s willing to accept the results without complaining.

Bucky had been taken apart and unmade a thousand and one times, so it hadn’t exactly been anything new to grit his teeth and wait for the helping hand that was going to reach in and scramble his brain like fried eggs. He’d been ready for that—he knew how failed experiments went. He’d been waiting for the fallout and the inevitable return to cryo, though this time he’d be followed out by sympathetic frowns and promises of better results in the future. He’s proud of how pragmatic he’d been able to be in the face of a repeat of the things that’d kept him sleepless for two years straight.

But instead of turning him back into a wind-up soldier, the girl had slid into his mind and taken his brain apart in a way he’d never experienced. She hadn’t torn anything down; it felt like she’d fixed him a little. Walked through the labyrinth of his mind and brushed her cool, healing hands over all its crumbling stone walls. It wasn’t a glaring success—they’d only been able to repeat the first few words before Bucky’d started seizing and breathing heavy—but it was _something_.

Still. It’d left him tired as hell.

“What, disappointed I’m still here?” Bucky asks lazily, not bothering to open his eyes. Wilson replies with an inelegant scoff.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a cynical bastard?”

Bucky thinks of Monty, who’d said that at least four times in their years together. His lips twitch. “Once or twice.”

“You’re doing that thing,” Wilson informs, and Bucky hears the quiet sound of wood scraping against carpet followed by an almost-imperceptible creak. He opens his eyes, and Wilson’s sitting by his bedside, a little closer than he’d expected. Fuck, he’s tired.

“What thing?”

“That thing Steve does whenever he has an inside joke from the 40s that he doesn’t wanna share,” Wilson replies. That makes Bucky smile, blinking slow.

“That happen often?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“What a dick.”

That earns Bucky the first smile he’d ever gotten from Wilson. It’s almost a shame, because the guy’s got a nice smile. He looks like a different person, just a little. “He can be, yeah.”

“He get you guys out from—wherever you were?” Bucky asks, too tired to mince his words. He knows that the team had been captured, though he doesn’t really know any details about it—just that wherever they’d been taken had made Steve swear when he’d gone over the security specs. ‘ _This-is-gonna-be-a-bitch’_ swearing, though, not ‘ _oh-fuck-me_ - _there’s-no-way-I’ll-get-out-of-this-alive_ ’ swearing. Bucky’s surprised he can still recognize the difference.

The shadow that passes over Wilson’s face, there and then suddenly not, is enough answer before he replies.

“Yeah, he busted us out. All on his own, too.”

“That’s Steve for you,” Bucky answers, ignoring the possibility of accusation in the other man’s tone.

“That’s Steve.” Wilson sits back, easy swagger borne of a lifetime of confidence. It reminds Bucky of something he can’t really place, the way it masks the steel under the other’s expression. Maybe someone else would’ve fallen for it. “Can’t lie, we expected you and Tony would be with him. Then when we get free, Steve’s in hiding, you’re frozen, we’re all fugitives, and Tony’s out of contact.”

“Sounds peachy.” Bucky can’t help the snark that falls out of his mouth—he’s fucking _tired_. Wilson brings the worst (or, maybe, best) out of him with those judgmental looks of his, and Bucky will gladly put up with them after a little nap. People would be surprised at how much being dragged out of cryogenic sleep tires you out. Fuck.

Maybe, if he were looking Stark in the face again, he’d feel the need to apologize for the shitshow that’d happened. Mostly the part about killing his parents.

Not maybe, actually—definitely. He remembers, suddenly, that he’d cried when they’d watched the video clip. A single tear running down his face, smearing with nervous sweat along his cheekbone. As selfish as it is, it hadn’t been out of remorse for the look on Tony Stark’s face. It was because Howard Stark had been his _friend_ , so remembering he’d murdered him and his wife in cold blood had been one of the lowest points Bucky had seen in the past couple of years. Worse than the generic sleepless nights, worse than accidentally snapping someone’s neck when they woke him up on a train, worse than the months it took him to get re-accustomed to eating real food. They’d laughed and jostled shoulders when talking about weapons specs, for chrissakes.

But he isn’t looking at Stark, he’s looking at Wilson, and he’d just had hands raking through his brain after being unfrozen. How many times does he need to apologize?

“Does this conversation have a point, or are you just gonna keep making that face at me? Because, pal, I could use some rest.”

Wilson’s eyebrows shoot all the way up, and he sits down.

“That’s a pretty good holier-than-thou voice you got there,” he observes, and Bucky gives him a toothy, sarcastic grin.

“Thanks, I studied up on it. It’s almost as good as yours.”

“Oh, is that how we’re gonna play it?”

“I call it like I see it, Wilson.” Against all odds, there’s a smile tugging at the other man’s lips, so Bucky knows they’re not gonna get into a fight. Which would really suck, because he knows it’s a pretty big blow to an army man’s pride to lose a fight to a one-armed guy with (as he’s been told) 90s hair.

“Alright, fine,” Wilson replies, and Bucky’s smile—almost real at the edges—fades away. “Let’s be honest here. That cool with you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Where the hell’ve you been the past two years?”

Of all the things Bucky had expected to be asked, that wasn’t one. He blinks at Wilson for a moment, then licks his lips. Suddenly, he feels more awake.

“Everywhere,” he answers.

“Yeah, I know. We tracked you.”

“You and Steve?” Bucky asks, though he doesn’t really need to. He knows the answer.

“Yeah. Guy spent all his free time trying to catch up to you, but we were always a couple steps behind.” Wilson crosses his arms, though his expression isn’t belligerent. (Yet.) “It takes some serious dedication and skill to hide from Captain America, especially when he’s best buddies with a bunch of geniuses and super-spies.”

“Well, I’ve had practice.” Bucky sighs and raises his hand to rake back his hair. He reaches with his left hand first, but it’s not there anymore, which is—God, just as disconcerting as it was the first damn time.

“Yeah. We noticed.” Bucky’s never been to a desert, but he figures Wilson’s tone is about as dry as one. “Look. Level with me. Why didn’t you wanna be found—no, wait,” he stops, raising a hand before Bucky can start yelling about the sheer stupidity of that question. “Why didn’t you wanna be found by _us_?”

“Why the hell do you think?” Bucky asks with a snort, hand flopping onto his stomach. “Did you see what happened with all that Sokovia Accords shit?” Steve had been bitching about it during their car ride with Sam, debating it back and forth. Sam had played devil’s advocate, and it’d been almost-fun to listen to Steve get more and more adamant with each point of contention. “How do you think it would’ve gone if I’d turned myself in to the team? D’you think they would’ve been able to give me sanctuary, after everything Black Widow spilled all over the internet?”

“You don’t know we couldn’t have,” Wilson parries, though it sounds a hell of a lot like another one of his devil’s advocate arguments. Bucky’s brow puckers.

“The team worked for an organization ghost-run by HYDRA for years.”

“And we dealt with it.”

“Oh, did you?” Bucky snorts, rolling his eyes. “ _Please_. They’re still alive, they’re just biding their goddamn time. There’re agents you haven’t found, there’re believers out there. And even if you got all of them, there’re still the scientists, the doctors, the researchers, the muscle. You think you got them all? Believe it or not, I read the news. You just took out all the visible figureheads and a few lackeys.”

It feels good to let it out. Bucky clenches his jaw, waiting for Wilson to rebut him or try to feed him some line about how he’s paranoid and how he would’ve been protected with the Avengers. But Wilson’s not a liar—of _course_ not, Steve likes the guy—so he just sits back in his seat again with raised brows.

“I think that’s the most you’ve ever said,” Wilson finally replies, and Bucky barks a sharp laugh of surprise.

“Yeah, well. I figure we’ve reached next-level status after I kicked your ass twice.”

“You got some lucky shots in!”

“Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night, pal.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” the other man says, and Bucky’s hit with a horrible pang of longing. Wilson sounds like—what’s _home_ , again? “Tell me this, though. We kept tracking you to a bunch of locations, but we only found them after you were long-gone. What were you doing all that time, huh?” Bucky looks away, but he continues. “At first when you disappeared, we worried you’d gone back to HYDRA, but you didn’t. And then we worried you’d start burning them down. Didn’t do that either.”

There’s a long moment of silence.

Wilson sighs. “Just give me an idea of what you’re thinking, man. I need to know I can trust you. Steve might be ready to put his fool life in your hands, but I need something more than some Brooklyn talk and war stories from the 40s.”

“I was trying to exist.” Bucky finally turns his gaze to the other man, lips pulled tight. He doesn’t like being this vulnerable, but he’s going to do the opposite of Sam: he’s going to take a chance, take Steve’s opinions to heart, and try to trust. At least for a minute. “I didn’t wanna burn anything down. I mean, I _did_ , I do, but I... Fuck, man. I wanted to try to _live_. Or at least do something close. It—I was so fucked up. I just wanted to hole up somewhere and try to figure my shit out. At least a little.” He shakes his head, frown pulling at his lips. “Of course I wanted blood. You saw the shit they made me do, I _know_ you heard about what actually happened in Siberia with Steve and Stark. I know he told you. And I was fucking furious, goddamn right I was, I’m always so angry—”

The air feels too tight in his throat, and Bucky breathes in. Closes his eyes. Counts to three.

“I’ve been so _fucking_ angry,” he admits quietly. “But I didn’t want to fight. Didn’t wanna risk it. It’s been 70 years and I’m _tired_ , man. I just wanted a slice of n—almost. Almost-normal.”

“Yeah.” Wilson shifts until he’s sitting forward, elbows braced on his knees. Bucky wonders, suddenly, how old the other man is. He seemed younger just a few months ago. Physically, he’s probably older than Bucky. “I thought it was something like that.” He shakes his head, lips twisting.

“Wilson.” Those dark eyes turn to him, and Bucky swallows. “Why d’you hate me so much?”

“Dammit, Barnes.” It comes in a sigh. Wilson shakes his head and rubs a hand over his hair. “I dunno. I don’t, not really.”

“But?”

“Well, you keep trying to murder me, so there’s that.” They share a black smile. “That sucks. I guess I was just trying to figure out what made you so special.”

“Huh?”

“You ever had a friend with a girlfriend you couldn’t stand? Not because of her, really, but because she made him so damn miserable?” Bucky thinks of the puppydog look on Steve’s face every time a girl had turned him down, a nice girl that Bucky’d liked enough to introduce to the best guy he knew. The way all that sadness made Steve think there was something wrong with him.

There’s a sick feeling low in his stomach. “Am I the girlfriend?”

“You should’ve seen Steve every time we found an empty hidey-hole and no you. He was fine the first few times. And then he wasn’t.”

“... How long’d he keep searching?” Bucky asks, already knowing he doesn’t wanna hear the answer.

“He never stopped.”

Fuck.

“He knows it wasn’t him, right?” Bucky asks, though that’s not a hundred percent true. Part of him had wanted to run away from Steve. Had wanted _desperately_ to run away from Steve. If Wilson can tell, he doesn’t comment.

“Yeah, but I dunno if that made it any better.”

“Yeah.” They’ve been saying a lot of ‘yeah’s. The tragedy of men attempting to have a conversation, probably. Bucky almost smiles at the thought.

“Other than you being the bitchy girlfriend, there’s also that I kept risking my life for your ass. And you kept throwing me off things and into things. So.”

Bucky finally cracks that smile. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“No, no, I am.” He sighs. “I know you’re pissed. Know you don’t wanna be hiding out in a foreign country because you put your eggs in Steve’s basket and he put his in mine.” That sounded weird. He barrels on. “Bet you got a family too. You do, don’t you?”

“Called them from a secure phone so they know I’m not dead and that whatever people say about me’s a lie.” The man grimaces, and Bucky thinks it might’ve been meant to be a grim smile instead. “Big family.” His face says he misses them something fierce.

Bucky knows, he _knows_ the whole situation isn’t totally his fault, but he still feels like it kind of is. There’s more to it too, he knows, than just missing family. Wilson seemed like the sort of well-adjusted guy who’d have a whole life, one that’d been interrupted by government sanctions and super-soldiers. No one deserved the kind of bullshit that’d happened to all of them. Not even someone as exceptional as a member of the Avengers.

So he gives the other man a look that he hopes properly expresses how bad he feels about all of that. “That’s real shitty, man, I’m sorry.” It’s not much, but for people like them, it’s the best they can do. Bucky can be eloquent, but only on paper. Never out loud. They sit in silence for a long minute, pondering that over. Feeling a bit bolder, Bucky decides to speak up. “You know, Wilson, you’re not so bad.”

“Yeah, I know. Still fucking hate you, though.”

They both laugh at that. It’s not much, but at least it’s a start.

★★★

#### STEVE ROGERS.

He meets up with Sharon on a sunny day in Prague. Her hair’s up and she wears sunglasses that she perches atop her head when she sits down; his baseball cap makes her chuckle. They have coffee and talk about what they’ve been doing the past couple months, and it’s nice.

The conversation gets a little stilted after they’ve caught each other up on everything. Steve thinks she might be looking for something in the way her eyes scan over his face, but he’s not sure what she’s trying to find or if she’s finding it at all. From the way her brows furrow after another awkward silence, he thinks probably not. He finds his eyes flicking to her hands a lot, watching the way her clever fingers fiddle with the white ceramic of her cup. Her nails are short and clean. Utilitarian, like the rest of her—apart from those long blonde curls.

Sharon’s a pretty girl. Even in baggy clothes no doubt chosen specifically to keep attention away, there’s something about her that draws the eye. He’s not sure what it is, because it’s hard to pinpoint. He wonders idly if it’d always been that way, tries to remember how he felt about her back when she was his neighbor. He comes up blank.

When he’s not looking at her hands, he searches for that special something in the lines of her face. What was it that drew him in when they were in Berlin? There’s nothing particularly unforgettable about her. He doesn’t see her and have the instant urge to draw. (Though then again, he hasn’t drawn anything in—) He tries to look at her like he wants to draw her, tries to find that pull. Her lips are pink like the healthy flush in her cheeks and her nose is a bit hooked, her brows curved and delicate. She could almost be a nice-looking stranger.

Her eyes, though. They’re hooded, not like his memories, that’s not quite right... But they’re a warm, warm brown. He knows that color. Knows it from—

“Steve? You okay over there?”

He snaps back to reality. “Sorry, what?”

“Nothing, you were just kind of—zoning out.” She tries for a smile. “That happen a lot these days?”

Steve feels the back of his neck get hot with shame when he realizes he’s been trying to find Peggy in her features. “Oh. Uh, yeah... Yeah, sorry about that. I’m kind of all over the place these days.”

She seems to understand, even though his excuse is total shit. She gives him an odd little smile and nods, continuing her story when he prompts her to jog his memory about where they left off. They have a pleasant, short conversation about what’s next for each of them. He’s honest and tells her he has no real plans and that he’s just going where the wind takes him. It makes her smile dim a little. He notices her cup’s empty and offers to ask the waitress for a refill; she accepts with an expression Steve can’t really decipher. Seconds tick by as they wait for the waitress, and Steve can feel himself one drawn-out pause too many away from talking about the weather.

The fucking weather.

_You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?_

But there’s really only so much dancing around a subject they can do.

“About Berlin...” Steve sighs, his hands looking too big where they’re curled around the coffee cup in his hand. He tries not to notice the way Sharon straightens up, like that was exactly what she’d been waiting for. “I just wanted to thank you again. I’m sorry you got pulled into all of this. And I’m sorry if...” He searches for the right words. Gives up and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. My timing’s never been that great. I think I was looking for something that’s not there.”

“Oh.”

“Not—because of you. You’re great. I just... I don’t think I’m really ready for... something like that.”

“Mm.” She doesn’t look as disappointed as he’d worried she might—more resigned, really. Like she thought this was coming. Her smile’s a little bittersweet when she nods. “Yeah. I figured that might be the case.” She fiddles with her napkin, but she doesn’t really look sad. “So that’s it then, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess it is. I didn’t mean to make you think...”

“No, no. It’s okay. I get it. I would’ve done the same thing either way.” He doesn’t doubt that, at least. Sharon’s a good woman and a good agent, and he knows that she serves the people she trusts rather than ones throwing orders her way. There’s something rueful in her expression, though, and their conversation trails off. It’s even more stilted than it had been when they try to drag it out, until it feels like picking at a wound. He insists on paying for their coffee and Sharon agrees after a bit of arguing, and that’s that. He watches her ponytail disappear into the crowd and sits alone, finishing his cold coffee.

The worst part is how disappointed he feels. Not because of their anticlimactic coffee date, but because Sharon Carter looks nothing like her aunt.

★

Steve’s busy trying to figure out how best to not burn his dinner when his phone rings.

The sound startles him so much it nearly makes him drop his spoon. No one had called him in _weeks_. The most he’d gotten since leaving Wakanda was the occasional _ping_ of a text, mostly Natasha sending him selfies in various cities days after she’d left them.

He heads over hastily to check the caller ID, swearing when his knee knocks into the side table. _Unknown Caller_. Of course.

He takes a deep breath and raises the phone to his ear. No matter who it is, he can handle it. Steve squares himself and answers with a deceptively even, “hello?”

“Good evening, Captain.”

“Your Majesty.” Steve smiles at the rich timbre of T’Challa’s voice, feeling less off-balance even if a bit of anxiety still twists through his gut.

The very fact that T’Challa is calling him means that either something very good or very bad’s happened back in Wakanda. There aren’t many other reasons that he _would_ call, after all, are there? Not like Steve’s exactly a barrel of fun. “I told you, it’s fine to just call me Steve. Hardly a captain without a team, right?”

“If you insist, though I do doubt that you could ever be ‘just Steve’ to most people.”

There’s amusement in his voice, and it hits Steve oddly. T’Challa makes him feel awkward sometimes, regal and wise in a way Steve isn’t used to. Not a lot of people alive in 2016 can make him feel so dumb and lumbering.

“Yeah, well, I got a few guys from the 1930s who’d have a thing or two to say about that.” He’s stopped smiling at that point, stomach churning. He’d never been good at beating around the bush. “What’s going on over there? Is everything alright?”

“Ah... Yes, in a sense. You wished to know when and if James awakens from—”

“He’s awake?” Steve doesn’t mean to blurt it out like an asshole, to cut off a king like that, but _Jesus Roosevelt Christ_ , they could’ve told him that they were waking him up, he could’ve made plans to be in Wakanda by then—

“He is. He has undergone the first of a number of procedures—”

“ _Procedures_?” Steve doesn’t even _try_ to feel bad this time. He’d be rude to the most powerful man in the world a thousand times over for this.

Luckily for him, T’Challa is a very patient man, probably more than Steve deserves.

“Yes, procedures. I know this is not what you wanted to hear.” His voice comes calm and unruffled. It doesn’t do much to help, but Steve appreciates the effort. “He did not want us to alert you when he was awakened, if there was a chance that our attempts proved ineffective and he would be returned to his rest.”

“So if you’re calling me, that means it was successful,” Steve hazards.

“Indeed. He is doing quite well.” Steve waits a couple beats to hear more. The moment stretches uncomfortably long before he realizes nothing more is forthcoming. That’s... concerning.

“I’ll be right down.”

“Are you sure? It is not a short trip.” Because Wakanda was already being monitored, the comings and goings of its aircrafts under deep suspicion. Clint had said as much back in Paris. He remembers it’d been a hollow punch to the gut, knowing he’d have to waste weeks of travel if he wanted to go back.

He doesn’t even need to think about his answer, already plotting out how to get to Wakanda from New Zealand.

“Positive.”

★

It’s barely been two days, but Steve’s in Bangkok by the time he gets another phone call.

He’s resting—even he can get tired, no matter how determined he is, and he aches for sleep that won’t come. He’d been watching the way the neon lights from outside slash through the shadows in his tiny hotel room, mind thousands of miles and a few dozens of years away. He doesn’t jump this time; he answers the phone calmly as though he knew it was going to ring right around midnight.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

The wave of relief that crashes through him is almost overpowering. Steve can feel himself melt deeper into his bed, eyes falling shut at the familiarity of Bucky’s voice. Just one word, but he feels like the world’s shifted. Everything feels just a little bit more _right_ , all of a sudden. He swallows, making sure his throat isn’t too tight when he answers.

“Hey, Buck. Heard you were awake.”

“Yeah. I know you’re probably pissed I didn’t tell you.”

“I’m not, I’m... It’s okay. I’m not. Really.” Steve hears shuffling, and he wonders what Bucky’s doing. What time is it over there? “How long have you been awake?” he asks, already dreading the answer. The way that Bucky sighs before replying makes it worse.

“T’Challa told you—what, two days ago?” Steve makes an affirmative noise. “I woke up eight days before that.”

“And you couldn’t call?” Steve asks sharply. He knows that he probably should, but he can’t bring himself to feel bad about snapping. Bucky sighs again.

“Steve... I didn’t want to get your hopes up if it didn’t work out.”

“See, no one’s told me what this ‘it’ is yet.” Why the hell is he being this combative? He doesn’t want to fight with Bucky, he’s just—he’s just—

“I know,” Bucky replies quietly.

“Hey, look...” Steve sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I’m not mad. I just thought that when you woke up, I’d be _there_. That’s all.”

“You take everything so damn personally,” Bucky says, sounding tired. “If I woke up and it didn’t work out and I went back under, you’d be beating yourself up over it. Don’t even pretend you wouldn’t be. And you can’t control these things, you know. You can’t put it all on you.” He chuckles, and even through their tinny connection, it makes Steve smile. “Stubborn asshole.”

“Yeah, well. I just would’ve wanted to _be_ there, that’s all.”

“You will be.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m doing better.” It sounds tentative, but Steve feels hopeful anyway. “I _feel_ better. A lot better. I’m still a mess, but,” he huffs a dry laugh and Steve closes his eyes again, not wanting to see the light and shadow play across his ceiling. “You know. I’m getting there.”

“Good.” Steve licks his lips, feeling lost for what to say.

“What time is it? No one knows where you are.”

“Oh. Um, midnight, I think?”

“Fuck. Did I wake you up, or...?” It’s such a mundane concern that it makes Steve smile.

“Nah. I couldn’t sleep. What time’s it over there?”

“Eight. I figured I was safe, that you were probably somewhere in Europe or back in the states.”

“I was in New Zealand,” Steve answers, rolling onto his side with the phone cupped to his ear. “It was real pretty, Buck. I’d never seen anything like it. But I’m in Bangkok now.” It’d been a lot of land to cover in two days, and Steve can feel it in his muscles and bones. But still.

“That’s a long way to go,” Bucky notes, echoing his thoughts. The words come soft. “You don’t gotta rush over here like that, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t know that,” Steve replies, choosing honesty. “You disappeared on me for two years. Buck...” He strokes his thumb along the side of the phone, swallowing. “Why did you leave me on the shore?”

Silence stretches between them. Steve’s started to panic when Bucky finally replies.

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You could’ve come home,” Steve replies immediately, and Bucky scoffs at that.

“Home? Where’s home, Steve?” _With me_ , he wants to say. But that’s so transparent it’s just sad, so Steve holds his tongue. “Brooklyn? God, Steve, I don’t even recognize the place anymore with all of its goddamn—goddamn _wine cellars_ and _rainbow bagels_ and shit.”

“You saw that?” Steve asks despite himself, surprised.

“Everyone fucking saw that, come on. _Rainbow bagels_. Those fuckers.”

“Sorry.” It feels like they’re getting somewhere, so he pushes on. “You could’ve found me. We could’ve—I could’ve helped you. You didn’t need to be off on your own.”

“I’m better on my own,” Bucky replies promptly, and Steve feels like he’s choking on the _wrongness_ of it, of them reversing their roles in a way they were never meant to. Bucky’s voice sounds scratchy and tired, like the words are being dragged out of his throat and scraping it up along the way. “I don’t... Honestly? I don’t think I’m the guy you remember, Steve. You keep looking for him, but you’re not gonna find what you wanna see. You didn’t need to see all this.”

“What the _hell,_ Barnes?” Steve snaps, and he can feel the surprise in Bucky’s silence. “I don’t give a good goddamn who you are or what you’ve done, you _know_ that. You’re still Bucky Barnes.”

“Steve...”

“No, Buck. You’ve changed a thousand damn times, we both have, but we’re still us. We’re still us and that’s the part that _matters_. You aren’t—you aren’t that different. Do you remember the war?”

“Yeah.” It’s quiet but it’s there. Fuck, Steve wishes he could see Bucky.

“You did—things there too. We had to, it was war, and you said—”

“I said people didn’t need to see Captain America getting his hands dirty,” Bucky replies, and his voice is deep and sure.

Steve fucking _thrills_ at hearing that he remembers that, though it’s probably vivid. The war is barely a couple years back for them, after all. He can still picture the way Bucky would step out of an interrogation room wiping blood off his hands. The war, Zola, all of it, it’d made him sharp-edged and cynical in a way Steve’d never seen from his friend before. He’d stepped in and done things Steve had never thought him capable of just so that the rest of them wouldn’t have to.

He’d hated doing it, too, though he’d never admitted it. He’d just clench his jaw and get on with it, dragging the Hydra operatives and Nazis away from the rest of them so that they wouldn’t watch. It didn’t make much of a difference since they’d still hear the screams no matter how far away he went. Steve had seen some of his handiwork and it’d made his stomach turn.

That doesn’t mean he hadn’t stroked himself furiously in the middle of the night anyway, biting down on his fist so no one would hear him while he pictured Bucky’s clever fingers dragging him in by his belt. Ice in his eyes and iron in his jaw.

Which is not something he should be thinking about right now.

“You were still Bucky then, just like you’re still Bucky now,” Steve says with bone-deep certainty.

He gets a sigh for his efforts. Bucky’s been sighing a lot. Steve chooses not to look into it. “If you say so,” Bucky replies without much conviction.

“I do.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna argue with you about this. You’re always like a damn wall when you think you’re right.”

“That’s because I’m usually right,” Steve replies with a roll of his eyes, but he’s smiling. He knows Bucky is too, so he counts the conversation as a victory on his part.

“Yeah, yeah. Look, it’s late and you’ve been traveling a hell of a lot—you should be sleeping.”

“Wait,” Steve says quickly, not wanting to let go just yet. “Am I gonna hear from you again?”

The line is quiet again, and Steve really fucking hates Bucky’s contemplative silences. When he finally answers, though, his voice is gentle. Steve can’t be annoyed at that. “Yeah, pal. I’ll call in, make sure you’re not lost in the mountains of China or whatever.”

“I’m not going through China,” Steve answers just to be contrary. He can hear Bucky scoff at that, and he realizes he’s smiling.

“Shut the hell up and go to bed.”

“Night, Buck,” Steve answers with a chuckle, and he swears that the other sounds fond when he replies.

“Night, Steve.”

He’s out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to talk to me on [tumblr](http://realmythology.tumblr.com/)!


	2. PART II. I love the ground on where he goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **EDIT:** This chapter has been edited as of July 8th, 2017 to reflect canonical changes present in Spiderman: Homecoming. There is only a minor spoiler in this chapter, and nothing related to the main plot.

#### BUCKY BARNES.

Bucky’s days start to gain a rhythm. He gets up, eats, does some calisthenics, showers, and tries to fill his day out with things. He does some reading, does some exploring. Every other day, he works with Wanda and Dr. Njengu to try to fix his brain—and, shockingly, it works. After the third session where they can get about six words in, he lets himself start tentatively hoping that things will work out. At least, on that front.

Of course, that’s also the day when T’Challa decides he has some extra time and calls Steve to tell him what’s going on. (Traitor.) He also tells Bucky in no uncertain terms that it would be very nice of him to call his friend, who’s upset that he hasn’t contacted him after waking up.

Which makes sense.

In all honesty, Bucky purposely hadn’t looked into why he hadn’t felt ready to talk to Steve, why he’d kept making excuses for himself to not call. But in the few and far between when he’d decided to get introspective and peer into the soft, squishy parts of his brain, he had to admit that a good part of it had to do with all the expectations he wants to dodge.

It was part of why he’d been on the run from Steve for two years, after all. He’d been honest with Wilson about wanting to avoid SHIELD and the Avengers and any other team or agency or what-the-fuck-ever that had lights shining on them. He hadn’t lied. He _doesn’t_ lie.

He just... Hadn’t mentioned a few less-than-important details.

And the thing is, he’d _tried_. More than once. He’d tried to push Steve away, to make him think there was nothing there worth looking for. He’d pretended not to know him in Bucharest, had reminded him plainly he wasn’t worth the effort on their way to the frozen fuckfest that was Siberia.

And when he finally gathers up the balls to call Steve on the phone, ten days after he’s been dragged back into the land of the living, he tries again. After all, it doesn’t seem fair to go on ignoring his best friend in the whole damn world just because he’s a moron who’s afraid Steve’s not gonna like him the way he is now.

Again, Bucky gets brushed off.

Steve’s insistence is a beautiful thing too, deep voice coming reassuring and solid as stone. Bucky almost feels like he could touch it, like he could lean some of his weight on the certainty in Steve’s voice and it’d support him. He likes that. He’s still not sure what to do about the swoopy feeling he gets whenever Steve steadfastly stays by his side, though. Comparing the horrible things he’d done between being frozen to the small-fry torture he’d done during the war. Saying sentimental shit like _‘you were still Bucky then, just like you’re still Bucky now._ ’ Shit that makes Bucky feel simultaneously warmed right down to his core and exhausted like he’d run a goddamn hundred miles in a row.

So he brushes it off and evades the feelsy shit, but he can’t ignore how good it feels to talk to Steve again. To feel himself _smile_ again, for real, no sharp edges. All the lingering awkwardness in their first talk melts away the next time Bucky calls Steve up, like snow under the sunshine of Steve’s smile. He can’t see it, but he can hear it. He can hear it a lot when they talk, even when they just do it to snipe back and forth about dumb shit, and isn’t that the kicker? Because everyone and their mother’ve told him since he woke up that ‘their’ Cap’s not the most expressive guy.

Whatever the hell that means.

After a while, it becomes a habit: check the time, guess what Steve’s timezone is, try to call. If it doesn’t work, send a text. It might arrive, it might not—whatever the case, he knows he’s welcome to try again.

No matter how stupid their damn conversations get. For instance:

“I’m telling you, they don't taste right!”

“No, you don’t fuckin’—”

“Hey, I _think_ I would know—”

“Buck, you haven’t been in New York for years!” Bucky bites his tongue to keep from replying with something incriminating, but his guilty silence gives him away. “... _Oh_ , you son of a bitch.”

“You were in fuckin’ D.C.!”

“You managed to hide under my nose in New _York_?” The righteous indignation is practically smacking Bucky in the face through the phone. It’s cute. “Where the fuck _were_ you?”

Bucky mumbles something that sounds kind of like ‘hertz machine.’

“ _Excuse_ me?” Fuck, Steve sounds like his mother sometimes, God rest her soul.

“Hell’s Kitchen.”

“The fuck were you doing there?”

“Laying low!”

“In Hell’s Kitchen? Don’t you know there’s some crazy guy out there—”

“In a devil mask, yep.”

“Oh, Buck. You didn’t.”

“I did, and I don’t like that tone—you get real self-righteous for a fella who’d fight a wall if he thought it was lookin’ at him wrong. The guy thought I was Russian mafia and tried to beat the snot outta me.”

“And did he?”

“Shut up, I can _hear_ you smiling. _No_ , he did _not_ , thanks. I’m not gonna let some blindfolded guy in red leather beat me in a fight.”

“Look, I’m just saying it’s kind of funny, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’d be saying that if a guy dressed like the devil jumped off a fire escape in front of _you_. In the middle of a shady-as-hell alley.”

“You sound like a grumpy old man sometimes, anyone ever tell you that?”

“Just being myself and all that jazz.”

“—Wait,” Steve says after a beat, and Bucky can practically see him narrowing his eyes. “So when you were bitching about rainbow bagels—”

“ _No_ , Steve, I didn’t eat one of those fuckin’ monstrosities, _thanks_. I stuck to good old-fashioned _actual_ bagels that don’t make you shit a rainbow.”

“Hey, remember what I was saying about you being a grumpy old—?”

“Yeah, yeah, keep it up. Like you’re that much better.”

“It’s just that I got such difficulties with all this newfangled technology, Buck.” Steve sounds so earnest that Bucky almost believes him. _Almost_.

“How long did that innocent-guy-from-the-forties act trick people?”

“I kept Tony going for a while.”

Even with the smile in Steve’s voice, Bucky feels his mood dip. He clears his throat, shifting on the bed. He’s not sure when he got into the habit of stretching out on the sheets with the phone tucked against his cheek, but there he is. He doesn’t try to skirt around it; Steve’s a smart guy, he’s definitely clocked the silence.

“So, any word from Stark?”

“Nah.”

“Wilson said you sent him a Nokia phone. Really, Steve?”

“Hey, it’s untraceable!” Bucky smiles at how indignant Steve sounds. “Besides, he’s probably not gonna contact me. I just wanted to give him a shot, and maybe...” He sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t like how we left things. We were friends for years, it’s...”

“You should’ve told him, Steve.” When Steve doesn’t reply, Bucky gives him another nudge. “Why didn’t you? I saw your face when he asked you.”

“I just...” Bucky waits, swallowing around the feeling building in his chest. “ _Buck_. How could I tell him? I thought he’d be better off not knowing, and it’s not like you ever would’ve done that if you coulda stopped yourself. You loved Howard. You two were always off playing with your guns and bombs. Remember how happy you were when he made you that custom sniper rifle?”

“Betty,” Bucky supplies immediately, feeling an odd swoop of warmth.

“Yeah, Betty. You loved her like hell. She’s in the Smithsonain—”

“With the rest of your exhibit, yeah. I saw her.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I didn’t tell you, I, uh—I visited right after everything that happened in the helicarrier. I, uh. I was trying to figure things out.” Bucky licks his lips, feeling strangely found out. “Everything was kinda a jumble those first few weeks, so I was just kind of bopping around trying to make something click.”

“Did you go to Brooklyn right after? Because I—”

“Yeah, no. I figured you’d check there first.”

“Oh.” Steve clears his throat. “That’s smart. I did. Sam said that you wouldn’t be dumb enough to go back there, that you knew I’d be looking, but I hoped.” He clears his throat again. “So, you know. Good thinking.”

“C’mon, don’t do that.” Bucky sighs and gazes at the ceiling, watching the shadows stretching across the white plaster. “You know, Wilson asked me why I stayed away so long. Sounds like you had a pretty tough time because of it. You know I didn’t mean to make you feel...” He’s not sure how to end the sentence. They were never the best at talking about their feelings, always dodging around loaded statements. Bucky remembers the trip to Siberia, the way Steve had clenched his jaw but said nothing when he’d felt low enough to spill his thoughts. “Look, all I’m saying is I know it wasn’t easy. That’s all.”

“You said you’d come with me after this,” Steve reminds, voice unreadable. “You meant it, right?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Okay. That’s... You know, that’s enough.”

“You never said why you went off alone. And I know if Wilson ran around half the world with you trying to find me, he would’ve offered to go with you now. So...”

“I dunno.”

“Steve.”

“No, really. I just... I dunno. I just felt like I’d be better off alone for a while.”

“Okay.” Bucky licks his lips. “Were you?”

“Buck...” For a moment, Bucky thinks Steve is about to admit something deep to him. The moment stretches on—but then, Steve sighs and his tone perks up artificially. “I think it was something I really needed, you know? I had a good time.” It’s the same tone he’d used whenever he was trying to assure Bucky that he wasn’t getting sick, that he wasn’t tired, that he wasn’t upset that another date had gone belly-up.

“That’s great, pal. That’s real great.”

★

Bucky stretches out his arm, admiring the chrome glint of it.

It’s lighter than the last one, enough that it had been the first thing he’d noticed when he’d woken up. It had been nice to be unconscious while it got attached, which was a luxury he hadn’t been afforded in the past too often. The thing was a bitch and a half to attach, what with hooking it up to his bones and nervous system and God alone knew what else. He actually hadn’t wanted to get it at first, had worried that it’d make him too dangerous to handle—but twin unimpressed looks from Wanda and T’Challa had shut him up before he’d even finished that sentence.

For such a kind host who keeps talking about repaying his debts (the existence of which was still debatable in Bucky’s opinion), T’Challa sure doesn’t take any of his shit.

Anyway.

“How does it feel?” The surgeon in charge of this hadn’t been Dr. Njengu, which had been a little disappointing. Bucky had liked the familiarity of working with her, and he’s surprised himself by actually starting to trust her. In contrast, Dr. Ntalami is a tall, thin man whose skin is one of the deepest blacks Bucky’s ever seen.

Bucky’d been nervous about trusting him when they were first introduced (though he’d kept his mouth shut). There was something he didn’t want to quite admit that got triggered in him at the sight of any man wielding a scalpel. But the doctor’s eyes are kind and clever, like Dr. Njengu’s. He reminds Bucky of the landlord back in ’39 who’d let him pay rent late time and time again during the winter, when it had been more important to buy medicine for Steve and food to keep himself working, when stupid thing after stupid thing had eaten up their funds.

But that was a lifetime ago and half the world away.

“ _It feels good_ ,” Bucky replies in his halting attempts at Wakandan. He’d always had a mind for languages, better than ever after all the poking around in his brain. It makes his doctor smile, and he smiles back. “ _Less heavy than the other_.”

“Good. That arm was designed by the King’s sister,” Dr. Ntalami informs as he looks over something on his fancy floating computer screen. Bucky raises his brows, stretching out his fingers.

“That tiny little thing?”

“Do not let her hear you call her that,” Dr. Ntalami replies, amused. Bucky nods, thoughtful. He’d met her a couple times. He hadn’t known that she was smart enough to design tech like _that_ , though. The thought that she could probably give Stark a run for his money amuses him probably more than it should.

A _ping_ distracts him. Bucky reaches for his phone with his right hand on instinct, and his doctor makes a little sound that prompts attention. “You can type with your left hand if you need to.”

“Huh.” Bucky looks down at his left hand again consideringly, eyeing the shining fingertips. That’s interesting. “No shit.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.” He looks down at his phone.

**[Unknown 11:42]** Heard you’re getting some work done today, hope it goes well. :)

**[Unknown 11:42]** This is Natasha, btw.

What the fuck.

**[Bucky 16:15]** How did you get my number?

The reply is pretty much instantaneous.

**[Unknown 16:15]** I shook down Sam. :P

**[Unknown 16:15]** Problem?

**[Bucky 16:15]** Yeah, why are you talking to me?

**[Unknown 16:16]** We need to work on your social skills.

Bucky sets his phone down with a roll of his eyes, turning back to his doctor. He frowns at the look on his face. “What’s got you smiling?”

“Most people are happier when their friends talk to them after a surgery.”

“Guess I’m not most people.”

“No, Sergeant Barnes, you are not.” Bucky’s not sure what to make of Dr. Ntalami’s little smile, so he looks down at his phone. Reluctantly, he saves Natasha’s phone number. His finger hovers over her name on the contact line and after a moment of consideration, he adds the little cartoon spider after it. That seems about right.

★★★

#### STEVE ROGERS.

Sometimes, when there’s no one else around for miles and miles to catch him, Steve’s mind starts to wander.

Part-way to Wakanda and riding in the empty storage cart of a train, he finally lets himself relax a little bit. He thinks he’s somewhere in Volgograd, but he can’t be sure; he can’t seem to focus in on anything. His mind’s all over the place, bouncing to and fro and always, always coming back to the same place.

Some things never change.

Steve lays a hand on his thigh and relaxes a bit, head leaning back against the thrumming wall of the train.

It’s a hazy image, but it materializes quickly enough. He goes back to Wakanda in his mind, walks through the pristine halls of T’Challa’s stronghold towards the room Bucky had stayed in for a couple days. He’d be there again after he woke up, Steve figures. He’d liked that set-up, had liked that there had been a door between their rooms. He could just rap his knuckles on it and step in, no need to go out into the hallway.

He imagines standing in that doorway, seeing Bucky awake. Bucky had worn white the last time they’d seen each other, but Steve imagines him in black, standing out starkly against the clean white walls and the sheets. The curtains are drawn and the room’s in shadow. It’s intimate.

It feels greedy, how much Steve wants, even just in his mind.

He’s a little ashamed of it, that hungry thing living low in his gut that makes him want to step up behind Bucky and take in his scent. Brush his nose along the hair curling out where it touches his shoulder, there at the nape of his neck. It’s different from what he’d been used to, that smart haircut Bucky’d always maintained before the war. Steve likes the long hair. It looks soft, like he could hide his face in it.

Bucky’s shoulders would be just as broad as his, mostly bare under a tank top. Smooth and pale. Up close, his familiar scent would be there, even if it was buried under modern-day soaps and fabric detergents and that chemical smell that seems to follow everything in the 21st century around like a shadow. Steve doesn’t get that close to most people outside of combat, but he knows that Bucky would be warm and pliant up close like that.

He always was.

(Steve bites his lip at the thought, hand clenching on his thigh.) Maybe... maybe he could press in, wrap an arm around Bucky’s waist. That wouldn’t be too strange, he wouldn’t be rebuffed. Bucky would let him do that. He could lay a hand on the firm plane of his belly, lean down to brush his mouth over the curve of Bucky’s neck like an accident. Bucky wouldn’t pull away.

(A sound catches in his throat at the thought, fingers flexing.)

Steve could linger there, breathe him in some more. Maybe Bucky’d gotten some color while Steve was away, lounging in the Wakandan sunlight like a cat. He’d always turned a gorgeous shade of gold in the summertime while Steve’d burned like a lobster. All that skin would be on display in a tank top, tempting and supple.

God. He wants to kiss it, wants to open his mouth and suck at it. Slip a hand slowly under Bucky’s shirt to feel the muscles laddering his abdomen, thumb at his navel. Taste the heady heat of Bucky’s pulse on his tongue and maybe, just maybe—

Steve jolts himself out of the fantasy, feeling hot and twitchy and guilty.

What the hell is _wrong_ with him? Bucky isn’t _well_ , his brain’s a minefield and Steve’s pretty damn sure that getting romanced by his best friend from a lifetime and a half ago is the last thing on his mind.

He huddles deeper against the side of the train, angry at himself and aching with want, and refuses to let his thoughts trail off again.

★

“... And I’m just saying, it would’ve been nice to _know_.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s the third time you’ve said that, you noticed? You keep bitching at me, see if I’m listening.”

“You’re a real son of a bitch, Barnes, you know that?”

“Ooh, look at you, big man. Bet your ma’d wash that mouth of yours out with soap for that.”

It’s been a long night and they’re not really talking about anything anymore, just sniping back and forth because they can. There’s a huge smile spread across Steve’s face for it. He’s missed this, the way that he almost always knows the right thing to say with Bucky. They’d been stilted together before the ice, but like this? He can almost close his eyes and pretend that they’re back in their apartment in ’41, Bucky perched on his Murphy bed as they bitch back and forth for fun.

Of course, he knows that’s not true. Things are different as hell now, and they’re still hundreds of miles apart; Steve’s on his way through Saudi Arabia while Bucky waits patiently for him. But still.

“Probably. Your fault though, you’re such a damn bad influence—”

“Oh _hell_ no, Rogers, no you don’t!” Bucky’s laughing and Steve laughs as well for it, tilting his head back at the familiar sound. “ _You_ were the one always getting us into dumb shit! Your ma thanked her lucky stars you had me around to pull you outta all the dumb situations you got yourself into, don’t you lie to me.”

“Yeah, well, you got me there. Into the jaws of death, remember?”

“Of course I remember.” Bucky’s voice softens, and Steve marvels again at how much better he sounds. They’d talked a few times since he woke up, and each time he’s sounded more like his old self. “To the end of the line, yeah? That’s what you said on the...” His voice fades, as though ashamed.

“On the helicarrier, yeah.”

“I said that to you the first time, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. After my ma died.”

“Oh.” Bucky goes quiet. “I remember that. You were so damn proud. Always were.”

“You’ve said that once or twice.” Steve fiddles with the strap of his bag, seated impertinently on the spot next to him. He’d slipped into a nice train, that’s how he can be talking to Bucky now. He knows that he hasn’t been the easiest to get a hold of, and that he doesn’t always have reception. More often than not, he doesn’t. He hates hearing that he’s missed a call or text from the others, but it’s been happening more and more now that he’s racing his way back to Wakanda.

“Mm.” The low rumble of Bucky’s assent has Steve closing his eyes. “It’s good to talk to you, you know that? I feel less outta step when we’re talking. Does that make sense?”

“ _God_ , does it. I’ve been around years and half the shit around me’s still awful, Buck.”

“Not used to it yet, huh?” Bucky asks, and Steve makes an affirmative sound in response. Bucky hums. “What’s the worst?”

“Fuck, what _isn’t_?” Bucky laughs at that, and Steve groans. “Don’t laugh at me, I mean it!”

“Aww, c’mon. You can’t just say that, there’s lots of good stuff now. Have you _seen_ the tech here in Wakanda? It’s un _real_ , Stevie, un _real_.”

“Yeah, yeah, I shoulda known that’d be all you’d care about. Remember all those pulp novels you used to read?”

“You shut your goddamn mouth,” Bucky replies immediately, and it sounds so much like home that Steve feels his breath catch for a second. Luckily, Bucky can’t see his expression so he barrels on. “Look, I’ll give you that it wasn’t some of your high-brow artsy shit, yeah, but some of those were genuinely good books—”

“Yeah, maybe one in _twenty_.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t ask me to read them to you a bunch of times!”

“Yeah, when I was sick and outta my head, maybe!” They’re both laughing now, big belly laughs that leave Steve breathless and a little teary-eyed. Thank god he’s got his own little train compartment, because he’s sure anyone who heard him right now would _hate_ him. He feels more alive than he’s felt in weeks, in months, in _years_. “God, Buck. _God_. I miss you.” His smile lingers, but the words are more full of sentiment than he means to let on.

“I know, pal. I know.” Steve closes his eyes at that, smile lingering and breath catching. “Get here quick, huh? I miss your dumb mug.”

“You love my dumb mug.” Steve licks his lips, tracing his thumb along the edge of his phone. “You gonna go with me when I leave?”

“Can’t stay in Wakanda forever.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, pal. That’s how it goes, right? You go, I follow.”

“I dunno, it feels like I’m following you to the ends of the earth right now.”

“Sounds fair after I made good on my ‘jaws of death’ promise.”

“Buck,” Steve replies with a frown, disapproving. He hears something that sounds like a snort on the other side of the line.

“Don’t get your shorts in a knot, Rogers. I’m allowed to quote myself.”

“Your sense of humor’s gotten goddamn twisted, you know that?”

“You like it. You know, Natasha said something like that to me the other day when she called? I think she likes it. Weird dame.” There’s a smile in Bucky’s voice that makes Steve’s stomach swoop uncomfortably. He doesn’t want to hear about this, doesn’t want to know where Bucky’s mind is going. He thinks of Dot, of the way her red curls had turned Bucky’s head all the way around.

“She would,” he answers noncommittally before moving on. “You getting on well with the rest of the team, then?”

“Yeah. Your feathered friend doesn’t like me all that much, but Wanda’s something else. She’s been helping me a lot through everything, just... She’s a good kid.”

“Yeah? You didn’t tell me that.”

“I mean, it wasn’t really... There wasn’t much to tell. She helps, she... she makes so much of it go away, Steve.” Bucky sighs, and it sounds like there’s a thousand pounds on his shoulders. “I hated it the first time, but the way she feels in my head, it’s not the same. It’s not...” He searches for the words, and Steve tries desperately to understand. “It’s not _bad_. She _understands_ , I feel like I can trust her. Does that make sense...?”

“It does.” Steve sighs and leans his head back against his chair. “It really does. You sound real good, Buck.”

“Thanks. Look, I gotta go, but travel safe, okay? Call me next time you can.”

“You got it. Bye, Buck.”

“Bye, Stevie.”

★★★

#### BUCKY BARNES.

It’s easy to ignore the rest of the world in Wakanda. Bucky picks up on the technology fast, and he spends a lot of his free time learning all about the country without actually leaving the protection of T’Challa’s fortress or the lush forests surrounding it. He’d love to go out into the city, but he knows he’d stand out. So instead, he observes from a distance. That’s nice too, and he likes the safe feeling he’s starting to associate with the place. The people he’s starting to recognize; doctors, attendants, maids, royal family, ex-Avengers.

He felt really dumb at first for repeating it to himself periodically, but he did it anyway: _no one’s going to hurt you here_. And after he got his arm back, some darker, more wicked part of him added in a whisper, _no one could hurt you even if they tried_.

He doesn’t admit to anyone but himself how comforting having the arm is. He’s pretty sure they already think he’s dangerous, no matter how pretty they smile at him or how nice they act. Which, really. Is okay. He doesn’t need to forgive them for it when being wary of him is common sense.

The only person who never looks at him like he might be a loose canon is Wanda, and he spends a lot of time wondering what the kid’s seen to make her so unflappable. She never worries that he’s going to snap—just that she’s going to accidentally hurt him when she puts those glowing little hands on his head. She hasn’t hurt him yet, so he gives her the benefit of the doubt.

“Hey,” Wilson says, catching the rest of the room’s attention. He’s lounging on the couch, frowning down at his phone. “Anyone heard from Steve recently?”

“I haven’t,” Wanda replies, hands pausing where they’re idly braiding her hair. She’s sitting on a pilfered couch cushion tucked against the window, letting the sun warm her back as she rests against the reinforced glass. She tilts her head, glancing at Bucky.

He’d been laying on the floor in a patch of sunlight— _shut up, Wilson_ —and half-reading from a tablet. Mostly, he’d been enjoying the warmth on his skin. It’s been a pretty calm morning, even by their standards. Bucky glances at both and shakes his head, brow furrowing. “Not since a couple days ago. I sent him a text this morning but it bounced back, I think he’s in...” He pauses, trying to calculate in his mind. “Egypt, probably. Why?”

“... It’s probably nothing.” Wilson’s not really the kind of guy to mumble his words. It makes something prickle along the back of Bucky’s neck. He casts a glance towards Wanda and sees her closing the paperback in her lap, sitting up where she’d been leaning against the wall.

“Sam?”

“It _could_ be something.” Wilson’s frown deepens, and he finally looks up from his phone to them. “Clint’s texting me. There’s some shit going down in New York.”

“What kind of shit?” Bucky asks, sitting up.

“The _really_ shitty kind, from the looks of it. Here,” Wilson sits up properly and scrolls up on his phone, then starts reading. “Clint asked, ‘hey, do you have your wings?’ I told him that I don’t, but Shuri’s building me a better pair for fun. Thought it was a normal text. Anyway, then he says ‘well that fucking sucks, nazis are taking over New York’.”

“ _What_?” Bucky snaps, sharper than he means to.

“ _Yeah,_ my reaction too. So I ask what the fuck he’s talking about, and he says ‘some HYDRA splinter group’s got a huge death-ray perched on the top of the World Trade Center ready to launch all over the world—”

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

“—and’, get this, ‘there’s a weird Humpty-Dumpty looking dude firing brain-blasts at anyone who tries to get close and shut it off.”

“ _Are you fucking kidding me_.”

“Yeah, I _know_.”

The three of them share flummoxed looks for a minute.

“So... Is Stark dealing with this or...?” Bucky isn’t really sure what the protocol here is. Wilson and Wanda retired for the moment from what he’s gathered, and he has no idea what they’re supposed to do about Clint’s texts.

As if on cue, his own phone _ping_ s from the coffee table where he’d left it. All three of them stare at it like it’s going to get up and bite them.

Wordlessly, Wanda makes it float over to Bucky. He kind of wishes she hadn’t.

**[Natasha 12:03]** Did Sam tell you what’s going on?

**[Bucky 12:04]** Wish he hadn’t. Yeah. Humpty Dumpty?

**[Natasha 12:04]** Really? That’s what Clint said??

**[Natasha 12:04]** Never mind. Tony wants to talk to you.

Bucky stares at that text for a while, waiting for Natasha to type something else. Maybe to say she’d sent that text to the wrong person, that it’d been meant for Wilson. But after about fifteen seconds of no response from him, all he gets is another text.

**[Natasha 12:05]** ?

Goddammit.

**[Bucky 12:05]** You’re in contact with Stark? Why does he want to talk to me?

**[Natasha 12:06]** I wasn’t until today. Can I give him your #?

**[Natasha 12:06]** I won’t if you don’t want me to. But I think you should talk to him.

Bucky rubs a hand over his face and sighs. He really doesn’t know when he started trusting Natasha. Maybe when she’d started sending him animal videos and pictures of nice-looking knives in the middle of the night.

**[Bucky 12:08]** Fine. I’ll talk to him.

★

They look through the news while he waits for Stark’s call. They haven’t really kept that much in touch with the news—Wakanda feels like a safe haven away from the rest of the world, foreign and beautiful and untouched. They hadn’t wanted to spoil it. But now they do, starting from American news stations before flicking through English, French, German—all of them are saying the same things.

_Catastrophe. Death-toll. Terrifying. Dangerous. Extremists._

The Avengers (or what’s left of them) have been given the go-ahead to deal with the problem, which has been upgraded to include hostages now. But all the Iron Man bots that’ve been sent to try to diffuse the ridiculously huge fucking death ray thing have been shot down from the sky by—Bucky genuinely hates how accurate Clint’s stupid description is—some really goddamn Humpty-Dumpty looking motherfucker.

Bucky almost laughs with disgust when the fingers start pointing at the Avengers-in-hiding. _If Scarlet Witch were here... We need Black Widow and Hawkeye... Where are our heroes now?_

“Un-fucking-believable,” Bucky mutters.

“That’s the media,” Wilson replies, grim.

Bucky just shakes his head and scoots a little closer to Wanda. She’d been hugging the couch blanket tighter and tighter since they’d started watching the reports, and Bucky knows that Wilson also hadn’t missed her little flinches every time she got called out for not being there. He isn’t surprised; he’s watched how the media flip-flops. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t squatting in run-down sadness-huts while he was on the run. He’d read the news; he’d had access to televisions sometimes. The internet—so helpful.

But he still feels a thrill of indignation when the Avengers are accused of abandoning the world, one if the news anchors even saying it outright: “the Avengers, our so-called heroes, are nowhere to be found.”

It’s laughable and disgusting and hypocritical, but there it is. All their names’re being dragged through the mud, even though half of them are technically not even supposed to be out and about anymore—but that part gets ignored, the consensus being _fuck your safety, come save us!_

And the biggest question on everyone’s minds is: _where is Captain America?_

Bucky feels a shiver run down his spine. He’s really not sure why, but all of a sudden he feels a terrible sense of foreboding.

#WhereIsCap and #BringThemBack start trending on Twitter.

★★★

#### STEVE ROGERS.

Steve’s charger stops working for some goddamn reason while he’s making a stopover in Cairo. He fiddles with it and mutters darkly under his breath, but he doesn’t think much of it.

Whatever, his bus is arriving. He’ll manage without it for a few more hours, and he’ll pick up a new one in the next city he’s in. It’s not like he’s missing anything important.

★★★

#### BUCKY BARNES.

When Bucky accepts Stark’s call, a floating video-screen pops up from his phone. It would have been really neat if the image of a slightly-singed Stark wasn’t the one that greeted him. He hadn’t mentioned anything about Stark wanting to talk to him to Wanda or Wilson. They’d been stressed enough about the situation already, and he hadn’t wanted to see how they’d react to whatever Stark wanted.

“Stark,” he greets.

“Barnes,” is the curt reply. “Is Steve with you?”

“What?”

“You heard me, is Steve with you?”

“No, he’s not,” Bucky answers, brow furrowing. This is about Steve? “I don’t know where he is.”

“Bullshit. I’ve been trying to call him non-stop for the past six hours on that stupid little Nokia piece of crap he gave me and he _hasn’t answered_.” A delicate pair of hands appear on Stark’s shoulders and he deflates a bit. Bucky still feels tense. “We don’t know how much longer before they’re done assembling their freaky death-ray thing, but a generous estimate says we have less than twelve hours left. You saw what it looks like, and that’s when it’s still being _finalized_. That talking brain-thing has some sort of energy-induced force-field around it to keep us from getting at it, and I can’t even get close. Rhodey’s suit isn’t done and—” Stark pauses, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Bucky takes the opportunity to really look at the man. He clearly hasn’t slept in a long while, and his hair’s a mess. There are grease stains on his shoulders and stubble marring the stupidly intricate cut of his goatee.

“What about the android-thing?” Bucky asks, making a concentrated effort not to sound snippy. “He can pass through things. Get past the force-field, disable the death ray, destroy that Humpty-Dumpty thing.”

“Synthezoid,” Stark replies immediately, taking a deep breath and rallying. “One, he tried to get past the force-field and it didn’t work. Two, they set up for an attack from us. Vision’s made of organic and synthetic materials, laced through with Vibranium and the energy and brain-waves he emits—” Stark cuts himself off at seeing Bucky’s expression. “Their sensors are hyper-sensitive to him. After the bots got blasted out of the sky, we sent Vision in.”

“And?”

“ _And_ we were going to do a sneak-save-the-hostages with my bots distracting the—Humpty Dumpty? I like that—but then the thing said that if their sensors pick up either of us sneaking into the building then their agents’re just going to shoot all the hostages.”

“Wouldn’t that destroy their leverage?”

“They still have the death ray. The hostages are just the cherry on top.”

“That’s swell.”

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get in there and stop them but the three of us can’t do shit alone. So.” The hands on Stark’s shoulders rubbed and he sighed, looking like what he was about to say put him in physical pain. “So. Spy Queen and Robin Hood are coming to help. But they’re not enough muscle for something this big.”

“So you need Steve.”

“We need anyone who can come, but yeah, we _really_ need Steve.” Stark levels him with a look. “So if you could tell me how to get in contact with him and get his ridiculously small ass over to New York, that’d be _great_.”

“I told you, he’s not here.” Bucky clenches his jaw. “He’s traveling. I don’t know where he is, I’ve been trying to talk to him for the past two days.”

“Shit. _Shit_!” Stark rakes a hand through his hair, looking away from the screen. He looks so wound-tight that he’s about to snap, and Bucky feels a sudden surge of sympathy. He’d be just the same if he was watching his home fall apart and couldn’t do anything about it. “What about Wilson?”

“He doesn’t have wings,” Bucky replies with a shake of his head. “And though he’s pretty decent in combat, I don’t know how much he’d be able to do against something like this. Maybe with the hostages, but the spies would be better.”

“What about you?” Stark asks suddenly.

“What?”

“Are you really just going to keep repeating that every time I say something? I said, what about _you_?”

“What _about_ me?”

“Well, you’re a super-soldier, aren’t you?” Stark gives him an assessing look Bucky really doesn’t like. “A knock-off, but still, close enough.”

“Wow.”

“And I see you’ve got two arms. So.”

“ _So_ , if I show up I’m either going to get arrested or, more likely, shot through the head by the nearest sniper,” Bucky snaps.

“So don’t show up looking like a murderous romance novel cover reject,” Stark snaps. “I’ve got a couple of Cap’s spare suits here in storage, I’ve got his shield, put them on and no one’ll know the difference. Everyone’s practically screaming for him to come back. They’d be desperate to believe he’s actually there. People are going to _die_ , Barnes. I know that doesn’t mean a lot to you—”

“Now wait one fucking minute—”

“Look, please!” Stark yells, and Bucky shuts up. “ _Please_. I can’t do this alone, Barnes. I can’t. I tried and I can’t and hundreds of thousands of people are going to _die_ unless we do something. So _. Please_.”

“Tony,” a soft voice in the background whispers. It matches the pale, freckled hands lingering on Stark’s shoulders.

Bucky thinks of New York. He thinks of the shaky video images he’d seen on the news, the huge ray shining right into the sky and creating a horrible glowing pink cloud. The people running and screaming, the crying. The pleas for help. The whole world looking for Steve.

If Steve were with him, they’d already be leaving.

“How do I get there?” Bucky asks, and he already feels resigned.

God-fucking-dammit.

★

The next few hours are a blur.

Bucky tries to get in contact with Steve about a thousand times before Natasha and Clint pick him up on the quinjet they got from—he’s not sure where, actually. No dice. Wilson looks grim and Wanda frowns a lot in the meantime. He doesn’t tell them that he’s leaving, banking on Wanda’s goodwill not to snoop around in his mind.

He only tells one person, actually. He sends a message to their host, because it frankly seems like the right thing to do. He may be a sometimes-brainwashed assassin but he’s not a damn barbarian.

Bucky’s actually surprised when T’Challa shows up to talk to him about it. He’s usually pretty hands-off due to having an entire nation he spends all his time running. Still, he doesn’t complain. The guy’s presence is actually pretty soothing when he’s not trying to claw someone’s face off. And when they part ways, he feels like he’s actually going to make it out of this without getting severely maimed.

(“It will be dangerous,” he’d said doubtfully. “And you know that you are safe here.”

“And I’m grateful. Really, I am. You’ve been more generous than probably anyone I’ve ever met.” Bucky packed his overnight bag with a little bit more force than necessary. “But if I didn’t do something when I could...”

“I see.” T’Challa’s dark eyes always saw right through him. “Do try to come back. I have enjoyed our sparring sessions.”

“You’re a flatterer, Your Majesty.”)

It’s only after he’s all strapped in and ready to go that he realizes this means he’s going to be stuck for a few hours at least with Hawkeye and Black Widow.

They don’t make it easy for him, either. All Bucky wants is to sit there silently, is that too much to ask?

“Glad you decided to join us, Barnes,” Natasha remarks once they’re in the air, and Bucky restrains a sigh. He’s not sure what it is—maybe the constant sense of sneakiness about her, maybe knowing that he definitely likes her more than he wants to admit—but the woman exhausts him.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” she answers without missing a beat. Bucky eyes the redhead with a frown, then casts a glance to where her partner’s manning the controls all on his own. Wasn’t this supposed to be a two-person thing?

“Not in this case,” he answers, crossing his arms and slumping back against the side wall.

Natasha raises her perfectly-arched brows expectantly.

She’s a beautiful woman, the kind Bucky would’ve gone mad for a lifetime ago. He’d always had a bit of a weakness for redheads, especially ones with hips like hers. And with those generous lips and her husky voice, Natasha’s an absolute knockout. He clocks it all as he observes her, plain as day. And yet...

“I had to come.” He shrugs.

“Mm.” She watches him as though he’s a particularly fascinating puzzle.

“Why’re you here, then? Since we’re playing twenty questions and all.”

The expression on Natasha’s face doesn’t falter, unnervingly cool. “Because someone has to be.” She looks over at Barton in the pilot’s seat, then turns back to Bucky. “Isn’t that why we’re all here?”

Isn’t it?

Bucky thinks of the news reporters, of all the things they’d been saying about the team. About Steve.

He can tell himself that he’s doing all of this because he can, because he’s the only super-soldier on hand. But the fact of the matter is that guilt isn’t really enough to push him into action. It never had been. He’d been more than content to ignore talk of righteousness and duty before he got drafted for the war, because there are more important things in life than making other people’s problems your own. He’d much preferred to work his ass off to send money home to his folks and sisters, to keep fresh bread on the table for himself, to have something squirreled away for the winters in case Steve got sick.

He hadn’t minded continuing that pattern, turning his face away for a couple of years even with all the shit he’d heard about going down—and the thing about the 21st century is that there’s nowhere to hide from knowledge.

The world’s always been full of horrible shit since the dawn of time, but it’d been that much easier to turn a blind eye to it before the dawn of the digital age. No matter what happened to people too far away to care about, it’d eventually go away and everything’d continue like normal.

It’d been real simple, actually. He remembers from personal experience. Read a news report about London being torn apart by bombs and fold the paper over, toss it away. Hear talk of Krauts turning on the Soviets in a bar, decide you’ve had enough to drink for the night. Easy-peasy. Hell, if you don’t leave your home you’ll never hear shit—he remembers a time when when lots of folks didn’t even have a working radio in their home.

But now—oh, boy. Now, no one could sneeze in Peru without someone in China knowing immediately. The whole world had wired itself together, had turned information into a constant stream. Dozens of news stations, hundreds of websites and blogs, social media websites, all of it.

Bucky had known about Sokovia right as it’d been happening, actually, though he didn’t ever bother to mention that to the ex-team. He’d heard about the Hulk and Stark absolutely demolishing part of Johannesburg hours after it’d happened. Freaky robot sightings in Seoul and New York had been fun to read about on a library computer. Had he done anything about it?

Hell-fucking-no.

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here,” he replies flatly, leaning his head back against the bulkhead and turning his gaze up to the ceiling. He doesn’t want to talk anymore.

Because the truth of it is: he’d done it for Steve.

Of all the stupid reasons.

It isn’t the death toll that’d gotten to him, or some deep, abiding love of humanity. He’d decided to pretend to be Captain America just so that he wouldn’t have to hear and see the public turn against Steve any more than they already had. The shit they’d written about him. Most of them had been hoping for him to show up—as if a few fucking twitter hashtags could do anything to change the world, _honestly_ —but some of them had been angry. _Real_ angry. They’d been happy to drag his name through the mud, to call him a traitor, a disgrace, a liar. All because he wasn’t risking his life to save theirs.

Bucky definitely isn’t conceited enough to think that _all_ the shitty things that’d happened to Steve in the past few months were because of him, but a damn big chunk were. He probably _would’ve_ been out risking his life if the whole showdown with Stark hadn’t happened. And he figures, hey, if he can do this little thing for Steve...

Well, why the hell not. Worst-case scenario, he dies.

Oh well.

“Where’s Wanda?” Barton asks suddenly from the pilot’s seat, drawing Bucky’s attention.

“Didn’t let her come.”

“ _Didn’t_ —you’re kidding, right?”

“No, seriously.”

“Care to _elaborate_ , Sarge?”

“Alright, let me rephrase—I didn’t _tell_ her I was leaving. Obviously I couldn’t be able to _stop_ her.” Bucky remembers the way Wanda would sit next to him on the couch sometimes, the way she’d settle in quietly like she didn’t want to intrude. It gives him the same feeling he’d gotten once upon a time when his little sisters would run around him, tugging at his sleeves and demanding attention. It’s a sweet thought. “We don’t know whether or not we’re gonna be arrested after we finish our world-saving whatever. Assuming we don’t die. She told me what they did to her on the raft. She’s got the least protections of anyone in New York. She’s not an American citizen, they can pretty much do whatever the hell they want to her. And if she said no, well, you can imagine how nasty things would get. You hear the kind of shit people say about her. You read it.”

“You’ve been thinking about this,” Natasha notes.

Bucky blows out a sigh, feeling awfully done with this conversation. He barely knows these people. He thinks of Wanda’s hands settling on his temples, how delicate she always is with him. She could break him with a single touch, but she never would. He feels a little bite of guilt for leaving the way he had, but he’d never liked goodbyes much. “Yeah, I have. Wanda’s a sweet kid, not some out-of-control monster. She doesn’t owe these people anything.”

“And you?” Natasha asks with a tilt of her head. They both ignore Clint swearing in the cockpit. (Bucky silently agrees that they’ll probably die, though.)

“What about me?”

“Do you owe these people something?”

“You’re awful clever,” Bucky replies, watching her. “No. Not really. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Just trying to figure you out, that’s all.” Her lips are quirked, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. Bucky watches her for a long moment, assessing. Then he decides he doesn’t really care that much about whatever she’s trying to pull, so he shrugs again and gets comfortable against the bulkhead.

“You and me both, Romanoff.”

That seems to be the end of that.

Bucky ignores the quiet chatter the two make, looking down at the blank screen of his phone. Soon enough, Wanda and Wilson are going to learn that he’d made the executive decision to run off and probably get himself killed. Personally, he thinks he has a half-decent chance of making it out alive. Between Stark, the ‘synthezoid’-whatever, and the two assassins with him, he’s pretty sure that they can get the mission done.

The alternative isn’t one he wants to linger on.

Especially since preliminary reports from Stark’s Irish-accented AI over the speakers say that the point of the death ray was to do what the helicarriers from 2014 had failed at. Bucky’s not exactly sure how it works, something about launching into the sky and satellites or some other comic-book shit like that. He doesn’t fucking know, doesn’t _want_ to know.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to lull himself into a nap. The AI sounds a bit like Sarah Rogers, before she’d done her best to beat most of the Irish out of her voice. He remembers what she sounded like bright and early in the mornings after he’d stayed over, or late at night after getting back from a long shift at the hospital. Those unguarded moments when she’d slipped a bit, all warm blue eyes and gentle hands smoothing Steve’s cornsilk-blond hair back.

Bucky’s eyes snap open at the sound of a whistle, fixing on Natasha. He isn’t sure how much time’s passed. He isn’t sure if he’d even fallen asleep.

“There’s no way you’re going to fit that hair under Steve’s helmet,” she remarks apropos to nothing. She doesn’t even look up at him, as if she hadn’t purposely woken him up.

Bucky blinks slowly and sits up, rolling the words around in his head. Instinctively, he reaches for his phone to check whether he has any messages waiting for him. None.

He turns his eyes back to Natasha, rolling his shoulders. The redhead is nonchalantly reassembling a gun; she raises her brows at him when she feels him looking. He’d really been hoping to keep on-and-off napping for the rest of the trip, but she makes a good point.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Bucky admits. His voice is deep from sleep. Hoarse, like hers. “You have a first aid kit in here, right? Do you have scissors?”

“Yeah,” Natasha replies, setting her weapon down and heading over to where they’ve stashed one of what looks like many first aid kits. She opens it up next to Bucky, rifling through until she finds a pair of scissors. When she tilts her head, her expression is expectant. “Do you want me to cut it for you?”

“You’re a hairdresser too?” Bucky asks, not sure how comfortable he feels with the suggestion. Letting the Black Widow brandish a sharp tool right by his neck doesn’t seem like a smart move, whether or not they’re supposedly on the same team. Steve might trust her beyond the shadow of a doubt from what he’s heard, but he doesn’t.

“Don’t doubt that Nat can do pretty much anything,” Clint remarks from the pilot’s seat. She looks pleased by the vote of confidence.

“I’m not a hairdresser, but I can get your head to fit in the helmet without looking ridiculous,” she replies primly.

It’s not lost on Bucky how absolutely ridiculous it is that they’re talking about his hair while traveling to their possible deaths to rescue a New York that’s been taken over by a group of neo-Nazis headed by some guy who looks like a huge egg and can blast energy out of his forehead.

What a world.

He feels the ghost of a headache forming. It’s all so goddamn stupid that he kind of wants to beat his head against the bulkhead. Instead, he relents and waves for Natasha to go ahead and fetch the first aid kit.

“Yeah, alright. Just don’t cut my ear off.”

★★★

#### STEVE ROGERS.

Egypt and Sudan bring out the freckles across Steve’s nose, and Ethiopia drags them down along his shoulders once he starts shedding layers. He hikes along the rugged terrain, skin burning under the heat of the sun and healing just as fast. Land disappears under his feet in a way it didn’t back when he was wandering Europe.

He feels _alive_ , and it’s pretty goddamn-fucking-glorious. Steve’s heading towards something concrete, dragging himself back to a piece of himself that he’d thought he’d left behind a long time ago.

He doesn’t even really have it in himself to be ashamed about how quickly he came running the moment Bucky was ready and willing to see him. He’s allowed to be selfish. He’s allowed to be reckless.

Steve feels vicious with that knowledge in a way he hadn’t expected to be, fiercely protective of the one glint of hope he’s seen in a long time. He’s served and he’s died and he’s sacrificed; he’s played the noble hero and he’s allowed to want this one thing for himself. He doesn’t even want that much, goddammit. He just wants to be able to be with his goddamn childhood best friend, the one person left in the world who’s lived the same life he has, who understands, who _knows_ —

And he’s fucking sick of justifying his wants to himself for the thousandth time. He’s human, if only barely. He has nothing else to goddamn live for, so he may as well live for this.

Steve runs now that he has something to run towards, his body nearly inexhaustible with it. He crosses miles and miles like that, when there’s no one to see him; the sun warms his shoulders and the summer air is hot and dry in his lungs, but he keeps on. When he doesn’t have enough food to keep himself running or when there are people around to watch him, he elects to keep walking. He knows that Bucky is waiting for him, but his body doesn’t get tired, not when he knows what he’s heading towards.

It’s that home he’s been searching for, what he’d thought had been buried in London soil and hidden behind the veil of an artificial winter. It’s there and it’s living and breathing, it’s there in the shape of the most loyal, tortured, goddamn _perfect_ man he’s ever known, and it’s waiting for him.

He calls Bucky once he crosses into Kenya but gets no answer.

A day passes, and he calls again from Nairobi. It wouldn’t have been the first time his phone’s been a little fucky with him, and their calls usually go through better from an urban area.

The line rings six times before it goes to voicemail again, and that’s when Steve begins to think that something’s happened.

He starts running faster.

★★★

#### BUCKY BARNES.

Stark isn’t there when they arrive, touching down on the landing pad of the Avengers compound. It’s probably for the best, all things considered. Instead, there’s a tall woman with strawberry-blonde hair there to greet them, crisp and calm. She introduces herself as _Pepper_ , and shares a hand-squeeze with Natasha as she leads them through the building.

Bucky recognizes her dark-painted fingernails and glittering ring from the videochat with Stark. He also likes her immensely, though he’s not really sure why.

She stops beside what's apparently Steve's former room, telling him in cool, clipped words that there should be a couple extra suits in the closet. She's watching him carefully, though he isn't sure what she's looking for. Maybe traces of lingering murderous intent towards Stark. Bucky just nods and smooths a hand over his short-shorn hair self-consciously, accepting the communication unit Natasha gives him. Pepper’s expression softens to something like surprise when he calls her “ma’am”.

“Five minutes,” Natasha reminds as the elevator doors close.

Bucky’s left alone with nothing but his thoughts. He blows out a sigh and heads straight for the closet, fitting the comm into his ear without pausing to look around.

The suit is in there, folded neatly over and gathering a thin layer of dust. The bedroom is silent and dark, all the tempered glass of the windows darkened so that the outside world is invisible. Bucky breathes out into the stillness and reaches for the suit, feeling a little shiver run up his spine. He touches it with careful hands at first, as though it’s going to rise up and snap at him.

Which is ridiculous, because it’s just cloth. A bunch of cloth that belongs to Steve. That’s all.

Bucky shakes his head and begins tugging it on. He’s methodical, not giving it too much thought. Pants, top, belt, gloves, boots. He forces himself to ignore the wrongness of it, of knowing that he shouldn’t be the one wearing the suit. More than that, he doesn’t let himself linger and see if he can catch Steve’s scent woven between the stitches.

(It just smells like the heavy industrial fabric it’s made of. Being disappointed by that is fucking _creepy_ , Barnes.)

When he’s done, Bucky flexes to see how it feels.

It fits him better than he thought it might, but then again, he keeps surprising himself with how big he’s gotten since he switched from HYDRA’s protein shakes to actual food. The important part is that it fits. It’s a little tight in the midsection because of Steve’s absolutely ridiculous wasp-waist and it hugs his ass a little more than he likes, but it’s sturdy and it suits him just right otherwise. Bucky wears his own boots but everything else is Steve’s, red-white-and-blue clinging to him from head to toe.

It feels sacrilegious in the weirdest way.

Bucky’s familiar with Steve’s suit, all its forms. The war uniform, the stupid cartoon-looking pajama thing he’d seen in clips from 2012, the outfit he’d warn in Sokovia in 2014, the one he’d worn when they’d reunited. He’d mocked Steve a thousand times over about how ridiculous he looked back during the war, bitching about how his dumbass best friend was making it his life’s goal to end up dead _because you look like a goddamn walking ‘shoot me!’ sign, Steven._ This shouldn’t feel so special; it should feel _stupid_. But Steve’s colors are on him and he feels... Wrong.

Bucky takes a look at himself in the mirror as he picks up the helmet, breathing in deep.

“FRIDAY, can you turn up the lights?”

There he is. Bucky’s heart flips right over in his chest.

He recognizes the man looking back at him, but not in the way a person recognizes their own reflection; he looks in the mirror and sees a memory staring back. Because there, meeting his eyes, is James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th. Dark-eyed and stubbled, and with a hangdog look about him that he can’t seem to shake, yeah, but it’s him.

Unmistakably.

Time’s wasting, he knows that, but Bucky can’t help lingering on his reflection for another second. He’s used to finding snatches of this man in mirrors, of catching the hard line of his jaw or the curve of his lips out of the corner of his eye and thinking, ‘oh, right, I’m Bucky Barnes’. He isn’t used to seeing this without searching for it. He hesitates before reaching out to touch the reflection, watching the way Steve’s fingerless glove wraps around his palm like a caress.

The moment’s shattered as quickly as it comes.

“Romanoff to Barnes. Where are you?” Natasha calls over the comm in his ear, and Bucky shakes himself out of it. God. What’s wrong with him?

“Barnes here. I’m coming.” Bucky tucks the helmet under his arm and picks the shield up, slinging it onto his back. It settles with a satisfying _shhk_.

Well. He looks awfully good in blue.

“Holy shit,” Clint says appreciatively as Bucky steps out of the room, raising his brows. There’s something grim about the guy’s face, there-and-gone, and he covers it up with humor. “You look noble as _fuck_ , Sarge.”

“Cap,” Natasha corrects serenely, strapping a wicked-looking gun to her thigh. Bucky puts his helmet on and sees a smile playing at her lips as he buckles it into place. “He’s Cap now. You’re welcome about the hair, by the way.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky flexes his hands arms, glancing around. It might be a little tight around the shoulders, too. “Where’s Stark? And the—Vision?”

“Meeting room.” Natasha watches him carefully, crossing her arms over her chest. “You have a plan?”

“Vaguely.” He’s not really sure who has the most experience out of the three of them, but he’s pretty confident they can figure shit out together. “Let’s go kill some fucking Nazis.”

“Aaand the illusion’s shattered.” Clint mutters with a scoff.

Bucky chooses to ignore it. Now that he’s there, he really wants to kill some fucking Nazis.

★

★

Mo.

_Ther_.

Fu.

_Cker._

Bucky’s in pain all over when he wakes up, an ache that feels like it dug its way deep into every single muscle he has—and maybe a few he’s never heard of, come to think of it.

He manages not to make a sound, but only because he’s had years—or decades, depending on his mood—of practice. His right hand twitches on his stomach. A moment of cold, cold fear grips his stomach and his eyes fly open to look down and—

Oh.

He _does_ groan this time, relaxing back into his pillow with closed eyes. His left arm is perfectly fine, gleaming in the afternoon light on top of the sheets. What a fucking relief. He remembers the huge explosion that’d sent him flying when he’d punched the Humpty Dumpty thing (it had called itself MODOK but he liked Clint’s moniker better) straight through its armor. Deeper, actually. Through its twisted little body, leaving a bloody crater where his fist had been.

No wonder it’d blasted him for that. Well, Bucky’d said that he wanted to kill Nazis.

And it looks like the arm he’d thrown up’d held up and saved him through the worst of it. He’s gonna get Shuri flowers. A _lot_ of flowers. He still felt like he’d put on a rack and then beaten with a baseball bat before being thrown in front of a semi, but that’s okay. He’s alive, that’s the part that matters.

Bucky opens his eyes to throw a dirty look at the shield propped up in the corner of the room. Useless fucker.

He’s only just realizing that he’s in Steve’s bedroom and not some medical ward when he hears the door click open.

“You’re awake,” a vaguely familiar voice says. Bucky turns his head to see Pepper standing in the doorway in a crisp white sheath dress. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and he knows that if he weren't seriously in pain, he'd be struck by how stunning she is.

“Wish I wasn’t,” Bucky replies drily. She gives him a mild look as she heads over, setting her phone down on his bedside table. Bucky licks his lips, trying not to move too much. “You wouldn’t happen to have some Steve-level painkillers, would you, ma’am?”

“You burned through them already,” she replies apologetically. “In the first couple days.”

“Days? How long have I been—?”

“Four. Your body’s really...” She shakes her head. “Really amazing. You were covered in second and third degree burns from the blast, but they mostly went away after the first day. Now you look like you weren’t even in the firefight.”

“Trust me, I feel like I was.” Bucky grumbles. “What about the others? They okay?”

He remembers Natasha and Clint sneaking in for the hostages while the rest of them turned their attention on Humpty. Vision and Tony had distracted him enough to get his shields down, and then... Well, Bucky has no idea what’d happened after that.

“Everyone’s fine. Natasha got nicked with a bullet, but that’s the only injury. Other than you, of course.” Her lips purse.

“Mm. Of course.”

Well. This is swell. Bucky’s definitely done worse things than waiting for the last lingering pain in his body to be healed away, and this isn’t even the most hurt he’s ever been. It’ll take a few days at most, he knows this.

But that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant. He wonders idly how his healing factor compares to Ste—

Oh. Oh fuck. _Steve._

Bucky groans again, startling Pepper. He doesn’t explain himself as he rolls to the side and gropes around the bedside table where he’d left his phone before he’d left, every last one of his muscles screaming in protest. He collapses back into the pillows as he thumbs the phone awake, and he winces at all the alerts on his lockscreen.

“Everyone was worried,” Pepper intones. “Natasha called them to tell them you’re alright.”

Bucky wants to ask ‘they were worried about me?’, but the proof is right in front of him and he doesn’t like people asking stupid questions. So he just clenches his jaw and nods, opening up his messages with all the solemnity of a man marching towards his funeral. Why is this so much scarier than death rays and mutated energy-blasting freaks?

He opens Wilson’s messages first, reads them from first to last. The first messages are from the day he left and the first day of explosion-induced unconsciousness. The last is from...

Fuck. Yesterday night.

**[Wilson 18:20]** You shouldn’t have left like that

**[Wilson 18:21]** That was a REALLY shitty thing to do

**[Wilson 18:23]** Don’t do anything stupid out there, Barnes.

**[Wilson 07:45]** You better not die, I swear to god. Call me as soon as you wake up.

**[Wilson 17:16]** Alright, I’ve been told that you’re gonna pull through and be fine. But you’re still going to want to call T’Challa and get over here quick. Steve’s here and he’s PISSED.

_Fuuuuck._ That’s exactly what he’d been afraid of. Bucky moves on to Wanda’s texts, already knowing that they’re gonna make his guilt triple.

He’s not disappointed.

**[Wanda 18:15]** i can’t believe you just left like that. you should have told us you were leaving, you should have let me come with you!! now you’re halfway across the world and i have no way to get there in time.

**[Wanda 18:15]** please, please be careful. i’m so angry with you i have no words. i don’t know what we will tell steve when he gets here.

**[Wanda 18:15]** we WILL talk about this when you get back.

**[Wanda 18:18]** please be careful, bucky.

**[Wanda 08:03]** please be alright. text me when you wake up.

Bucky really gets the feeling that there’s a lot there that isn’t included, lots of guilting and swearing that she’d contained herself from writing. He’s going to get it when he comes back, he can tell. There’s only one text from T’Challa, thankfully, and it’s—from yesterday. Like Sam’s last text.

**[T’Challa 16:05]** I have received word from Ayo that Steve has been retrieved at the meeting point and is arriving. I doubt that he will react well to your absence. Tell me what your travel plans are in the coming days when you are well. I’m glad to have not lost a somewhat decent sparring partner.

Bucky can’t even smile when he’s dreading Steve’s texts so much.

He notes that Pepper’s still next to him, poking around on her own phone and waiting patiently. What for, he’s not really sure.

“I’m alright, you don’t have to stick around.” It’s an olive branch, and it’s also a weak attempt at distracting himself. He feels unreasonably afraid of Steve’s reaction. “Didn’t Natasha say that you’re the CEO of Stark Industries?”

“I know.” Pepper folds her phone into her lap and gives him a little smile. “I am. Still. I wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“Oh.” Bucky frowns. “Why?”

“Well, you almost died, for one. You saved a lot of people.” Her gaze softens. “And I tend to do things for Tony that he can’t really do himself.”

“... Are you gonna brain me with that lamp?” Bucky guesses, only half-joking. Pepper laughs and crosses her legs.

“No. No. Tony just doesn’t know how to say that he’s grateful.”

“Oh.” That seems like all Bucky can say today. His frown deepens. “Why?”

Goddammit. What is he, a broken record?

“Coming all this way? Risking your life? Almost dying?” Pepper lists them off on her fingers, looking at him like he’s being particularly obtuse. “Not murdering him?”

“He didn’t make it easy,” Bucky mutters. Fucking civilians. For all that Stark’s flying metal suit is awesome as hell, the guy still has no military training or ear for authority. Reining him in during their mission had been like herding cats. Really self-righteous cats who wanted to claw his face off.

“I know,” Pepper replies with a pretty smile. She looks fond, and though she’s looking at Bucky, he knows the sentiment isn’t directed at him. “He feels bad about what happened in Siberia. Just so you know. He probably isn’t ever going to tell you, but I figured you deserve to hear it.”

“Does it matter?” Her expression falls a bit. “He wasn’t wrong. I did it. I didn’t want to, but I did.”

“Sergeant...”

“Hey, it’s okay. Let’s not, alright?” Bucky winces. He hates it when people look at him like that, even more when it’s women. Pepper’s made of tough stuff, he knows, but she looks awfully sad for him. Or for Stark. Maybe both. He can’t really tell. “But maybe you can tell Stark that if he wants to make me feel better, he can muster up some more of whatever was keeping me under the past few days? That’d be peachy.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Pepper’s lips twitch and she stands. Stark’s an awfully lucky guy to have a girl like her, Bucky thinks. A real lady. He thought those’d died out back in the 80s. “Anything else?”

“Some food’d be nice.” Bucky looks over at the limp IV by his bedside. “Was I hooked up to...?”

“It’s just been a saline drip since we ran out of painkillers. We figured you’d be waking up today, so...” She shrugs. Bucky wonders who told her that he’d probably react badly to needles, because they were definitely on the money. He’s grateful for small mercies. “So... Maybe a nice soup?” she guesses. He shrugs.

“Anything. Thanks, Miss Potts.”

“Pepper,” she corrects, giving Bucky a nod as she heads for the door. It clicks quietly behind her, leaving Bucky to his thoughts.

And his phone.

He takes a deep breath and opens his messages back up, thumb hovering over Steve’s name for a long moment before he taps.

**[Steve 07:10]** Hey, I’m in Nairobi. Tried calling you the other day when I got into Kenya and today and it didn’t work. Thought it’d work better in a city.

**[Steve 07:10]** Just wanted you to know I’m close! Hope you get these.

**[Steve 07:11]** Call me when you’re free :)

**[Steve 15:48]** Hey, still haven’t been able to get in contact with you. I tried calling a couple times, and my last texts might not have gone through

**[Steve 15:49]** Probably my fault, you already told me that my phone’s a piece of crap. But I just got into Wakanda, so I should be there in an hour. See you soon :)

**[Steve 16:32]** Just got inside! Get your lazy ass out here Barnes

**[Steve 18:29]** This feels like some sort of cosmic joke.

**[Steve 18:30]** What the fuck’s so important that you’re GONE? Where are you? Sam and Wanda won’t tell me anything, they just keep harping on about it being “your choice”.

**[Steve 18:30]** Buck...

**[Steve 18:34]** Come back soon.

★★★

#### STEVE ROGERS.

When Steve arrives in Wakanda, Bucky’s not there.

“What do you mean, he’s _not here_?” he demands, dropping his bag down beside him. He’d tried to be conscientious of his looks before he got there, but he hadn’t had a lot of time to freshen up and do things like shaving. He knows he probably looks a little wild.

He tries to ignore the way Wanda watches him with big eyes, like she thinks he’s a cornered animal about to bite.

Sam’s the one who answers him, hands palms-out as if Steve needs to be _calmed down_. It’s fucking insulting. “Hey, calm down,” he starts, voice pitched low. Steve clenches his jaw in response and doesn’t miss the way Wanda’s fingers twitch. He’s worrying her. _Good_ , he thinks savagely. “He’s not going to be gone for long, it was a sudden thing—”

“What sort of _sudden thing_ comes up for an internationally-wanted fugitive?”

Some frustration bleeds into Sam’s expression, and Steve knows he’s pushing too hard. Sam’s a patient man most times, but he has his limits, and those limits’d been pulled thin in the past few months. And he knows it’s all his fault no matter what Sam says, he _knows_ , but he’s so goddamn angry. “That’s something _Barnes_ is going to tell you when he gets back. And he _will_ get back, alright? Stop looking at me like I kicked your puppy, I didn’t have anything to do with it. Neither of us did.”

“Why can’t you just _tell_ me where he went?”

“Why do you _need_ to know?” Sam replies, tone even but frown deepening. Steve opens and closes his mouth for a second, no idea how to respond to a question like that. Of course he needs to know. He needs to know because—because—

“I...”

“He’s a grown man, Steve,” Sam barrels on, voice raising when Steve tries to protest. “Maybe he’s not in the _best_ place he’s ever been, but you can’t shadow him forever, man. We tried to stop him from going but he insisted, and I _know_ you remember what happened the last couple times one of us tried to stand in his damn way.”

“That’s a low blow,” Steve replies lowly, recoiling a bit.

“That’s the _truth,_ Cap.”

“Steve,” Wanda interrupts quietly, padding over to him on bare feet. She hesitates for a moment before reaching out to touch his arm, and it’s only then that Steve realizes how much he’s tensed up. He’s facing some of his best friends in the world with a clenched jaw and squared shoulders, like he’s about to fight them.

He feels like a damn heel.

Steve forces his jaw to unclench, injecting calmness into his stance. The last thing he needs is for the kid to be afraid of him. Wanda gives him a smile in response, and he doesn’t miss the glint of red in her eyes. She’s been looking for the right words to say, and he can’t even bring himself to be pissed off about it.

“Trust that he will be back, and when he is, he will explain everything. This was his choice.” Her words are confident even though her face is mild, and Steve feels some of the fight leech from him for real.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

He sags at the confirmation, raising a hand to rub over his face. A couple weeks’ worth of stubble is rough against his palm, reminding him again of how much he probably looks a mess. No wonder Sam and Wanda were so cagey when they saw him barrel in, he probably looks half out of his mind.

Steve sighs and folds his hand over Wanda’s where it lingers on his arm, giving her cold fingers a squeeze. She smiles again and he feels a little bit better.

“Sorry,” he manages, turning his eyes to Sam. The other man shrugs, smiling easy and heading over to clap a hand on Steve’s shoulder. Steve hadn’t realized how far away they’d been standing, like they’d been afraid he was going to pop any second.

(Their conversation is far from over, but Sam’s going to postpone it until Steve’s a little more steady. He recognizes that. Sam’s good like that.)

“Hey, it’s okay. You’ve been on the road for a while, you wanted to see Barnes. We get it, we’re second place.” Sam’s voice is teasing, but Steve still feels a little bad.

“You know that’s not true,” Steve huffs, accepting hugs from each of them.

It feels good, having that kind of closeness. He hadn’t hugged anyone since he’d seen Natasha in Paris, and he hadn’t even noticed how much he’d missed human touch. Not that he’s ever known much of that, but still.

“Yeah, sure. So what’s with the mountain man look?”

“I like it,” Wanda protests playfully, giving Sam a smile. “He looks different.”

“He looks a mess is how he looks. When’s the last time you _showered_ , Rogers?”

“Lay off, I’ve been travelin’ half the world,” Steve grouses, pushing at Sam’s shoulder and smiling anyway.

“Yeah, and not a single damn postcard, we see how it is.”

“Hey, I was trying to live my best life!”

“Yeah, okay. While you were Eat-Pray-Loving all over the world, we were trying to get some actual _work_ done.”

“Oh, is that how it is?” Steve laughs, remembering the first time they’d met. Sam’s smile widens, more genuine than it’s been all night.

“That’s how it is.”

★

After he leaves Sam and Wanda, Steve’s mind is free to latch on to what he’d been doing his best to ignore: namely, that Bucky is _gone_.

They’d insisted that it wasn’t a big deal. Bucky had left for a while, had gone off— _somewhere_ , it still stings that no one would tell Steve _where_ —and he’d be back at some point.

Of course, _he’d be back_.

They’d assured him that repeatedly, as if that nugget of promise would quiet the longing twisting painfully at Steve’s insides. It had probably been written all over his face what he wanted even as they’d tried talking about other things; where he’d traveled and what he’d seen and how the others were doing. They didn’t understand why he got quiet about it and he wasn’t about to explain it to anyone, so he left after a couple of forced-cheerful goodbyes and holed himself up in the room he’d been given months ago.

And now, there’s no one with him. Nothing but silence.

His mind quiets down a bit, exhausted from all the circles it’d been running in. The bed feels familiar under Steve’s back, firm with just enough give to make him feel like he isn’t floating on a marshmallow.

All he’d managed to do before laying down was kick off his shoes and throw his coat over a chair, but it’d felt like enough. He knows he’s haggard and dirty and probably should’ve taken a long bath before throwing himself down on the clean sheets, but he’d been in a _hurry_. He hadn’t known how tired he was until he got there. He’d rushed halfway across the world, by boat and by train and on foot when all else failed, and he still hadn’t been able to get there in time to see Bucky.

_He’ll be back, though. He’ll be back._

Steve tries to convince himself of that, thinking in circles, repeating the words in his brain with the hope that they’d quiet the horrible feeling building in his chest.

He’d thought that he needed time alone, but maybe he’d been wrong. Being away from Sam and Wanda just puts how goddamn _sad_ he is in sharper relief, makes it that much clearer how much he’d latched onto Bucky. He feels stretched thin with sharp-edged want, as though he’d been pulling his heart apart like putty and it’s about to snap. He wants and wants and _wants_ , he wants so fucking badly that he wants to break something. Was it too much to get this one thing? Hadn’t he tried hard enough? Hadn’t he been fast enough? Hadn’t he crossed land and sea in record time, just to be there?

The tension lingers and makes a home for itself in his chest as he keeps trying to count his breaths, to ward off the mounting frustration that always makes him liable to destroy anything he touches.

Minutes pass. He loses time. He’s not sure how _much_ time he loses, exactly, just that his breaths lose their shaky edge after a while.

He finds himself lying on the bed with his hands twisted through his hair, unsure of how long he’d been agonizing over something he has no control over. His fingers feel stiff, and humiliatingly, he realizes that his eyes feel wet and puffy.

Steve loosens his grip and closes his eyes, scalp aching from where he’d been pulling. He takes a deep breath that makes his chest feel like it rattles.

_He’ll be back._

A beat. One, two.

He stares up at the ceiling for a long moment, feeling achy and heartsick but no longer ready to fight someone. He lets his breath out slow like a deflating balloon, like he’s purging all the feelings from his chest. Every last one. It leaves him feeling a little numb, but it’s better than the alternative.

Then he stands up and heads towards the bathroom even though every muscle in his body screams in protest.

It’s fine. Nothing to be upset over.

_He’ll be back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to talk to me on [tumblr](http://realmythology.tumblr.com/)!


	3. PART III. I pray the time will come when he and I will be as one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: This chapter has been edited as of July 9th, 2017 to reflect canonical changes present in Spiderman: Homecoming. There is only a minor spoiler in this chapter, and nothing related to the main plot.

#### STEVE ROGERS.

Steve is embarrassed as hell when he wakes up in the morning.

He lays there for a long time not feeling particularly enthusiastic about getting up. He stares at the shadows on the ceiling and wishes, ridiculously, that they’d swallow him up so that he wouldn’t have to get up and deal with the _looks_ he’ll definitely be getting.

He was maybe a little dramatic last night, he’s man enough to recognize that. He also probably shouldn’t have yelled at Sam and Wanda about something that wasn’t their fault. But the unhappiness is still there, hours later. It’s heavy and cloying, like a wet blanket.

Which is stupid. He’s being an idiot.

Steve sighs and heaves himself out of bed, padding to the bathroom. The man in the mirror is a goddamn mess. He’d bathed the hard trip away last night, standing under the spray for a long while with his head bowed back into the hot spray of water. He’d stood there until the bathroom had been filled with steam and the guilt for wasting water had gnawed at him harder than his self-pity, and then he’d gone to bed and to empty dreams.

The two-week-old beard that’d taken over his face is still there, and he’s kind of reluctant to shave it off. Not because he likes it, but because he’s feeling particularly lazy and doesn’t care about how he looks. Steve had always preferred to be clean-shaven, ever since he’d started growing facial hair, and it’d never seemed like any trouble to take a few minutes in the morning to shave. Now...

“You’re being an idiot,” he reminds his reflection pointedly. If Bucky were around, he wouldn’t care what Steve looked like. He wouldn’t find him more or less attractive either way, so he shouldn’t be reluctant to do normal human things just because the guy’s not there.

Still. Last night’s onslaught of misery lingers, the healing cracks of every single heartbreak he’d felt when he hadn’t been able to catch Bucky on time aching with a renewed sting.

How many times had he been just a day, an hour, a minute too late to catch him? Two years he’d searched, traveling all over the globe to find him. It’d been easiest when he’d followed false leads; at least then he could curse at himself for being fooled. But the worst had always been when he’d _just missed_ Bucky, when he’d had to deal with the clear-as-day proof that the person he cared about most in the world was actively hiding from him. He’d only been able to deal with it for so long, making his excuses and rationalizations ( _he’s scared, he’s not himself, he’s on the run anyway_ ) so long before he’d finally cracked.

That had been a nasty day. Steve’s not much of a crier, never had been, but that... That had gone pretty much the same way as last night. He isn’t sure what he would have done if Sam hadn’t been there with him.

Steve closes his eyes and ducks his head, internally counting to ten.

He looks back up at the mirror.

Nothing changes. He isn’t sure what he expected.

“Still an idiot,” he mutters, turning the water on and reaching for the shaving cream. He’s been on this weird precipice for months, and he hasn’t let it beat him yet. There’s nothing to be upset about; Bucky’s going to come back.

And when he does, _oh_ , Steve is going to fucking let him have it.

He isn’t going to apologize for being upset. He’s still embarrassed, yeah, but he’s also pretty pissed off even though he knows there’s at least an 80% chance Bucky had tried to call or text him.

He doesn’t care. The guy’s not here, and he’s going to cling to his anger. It’s not the first time that anger is all he’s had to keep him going, and some part of him knows that it’s probably petty and childish of him to cling to it, but he couldn’t give less of a damn. There are worse ways to keep your head up. Steve’s going to keep himself nice and pissed off till he finally gets to hear Bucky’s voice.

★★★

#### BUCKY BARNES.

Laying around and waiting for his body to stop punishing him for saving the world from partial destruction is pretty fucking boring.

Every time Bucky tries to sneak his way farther than the bathroom, FRIDAY pops up out of nowhere. The sound of an Irish accent sniping at him for being up to no good is so strangely familiar with most of his brain screwed back in that Bucky finds himself automatically sliding back towards the bed, usually before he realizes what he’s doing. The AI cheerfully exploits this.

Natasha and Clint visit him, cheerful and looking better for the wear. More or less. Natasha’s arm is in a splint and she doesn’t seem particularly happy about it, but she seems content enough about Clint doing shit for her. Bucky can’t help but think that it’s a little unfair that he’s the one who was stupid enough to get himself covered in burns and blasted off a building, but she’s the one who’s going to have to spend weeks recovering. Apparently when Pepper had said she’d been “grazed” by a bullet, it meant that the thing had nearly taken a chunk out of her shoulder.

Apparently they aren’t getting arrested, either. The city’s too much of a mess and they’ve got more important things to focus on than trying to get a search warrant to go into Stark Tower. That’s a pretty big relief, because Bucky didn’t survive his near-brush with death only to be arrested and probably experimented on.

Of course, it isn’t much better to have to face everyone who’d been scared for him.

He puts it off as long as he can, feeling the clock ticking. Wakanda’s seven hours ahead of him and he feels that acutely, knowing that it’s later and later in the day with every minute that he doesn’t call. By the time he does, they’ve all probably heard that he’s awake from one source or another. It’s an asshole move, he knows, but some of them are easier to talk to than others.

Wilson and T’Challa are happy with just texts to assure them that he isn’t dead. Their reactions aren’t much of a concern; he already knew that they would mock and razz him once they heard that he was alright. It’s the other two that Bucky’s scared of.

He sucks up his reluctance and calls Wanda first, feeling too guilty after her texts to put it off. He isn’t surprised when the first thing she does (after making sure he’s healing up) is to give it to him _good_ , complete with threats and reminders that belie how sweet-natured she usually is. Bucky doesn’t want to admit to being scared of a teenager, but if he said that he thought she was harmless then he’d be lying to himself, whoever was listening, and God as well. He hangs up the phone feeling better, though, knowing that she’s not as angry anymore. That much’ll be alright.

But for all that the conversation had passed in a blur, its end just means that it’s time to call Steve. Bucky doesn’t know why he feels so much foreboding—it’s not like Steve’s going to get on his case about it. But when he thinks of how far Steve had traveled, how excited he’d seemed... Bucky needs a full five minutes to gather himself in preparation, his mind echoing with what he imagines Steve’s texts would have sounded like out loud.

_Buck..._

_Come back soon._

It’s not much for most people, for Steve...

_Come back soon._

Bucky presses the call button before he realizes what he’s doing, which is probably for the better because he’s spent all day finding excuses to pussy out of calling the person who needs to hear him most.

Steve answers after two rings. “Hello?”

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky greets, already wincing.

“ _Jesus_ , Buck!” Oh god. And the yelling begins. “Where the hell are you? I’ve been so damn worried! No one’s gonna tell me where you are and what you’re doing! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Uh...” Bucky grimaces, rubbing his flesh hand over his face. “I’m gonna be back in a couple days, promise. I might’ve... done something a little reckless.” That’s putting it mildly.

Steve is silent for a long moment, and Bucky can feel the judgment and frustration through his phone. “Reckless _how_?” Steve finally demands, and wow, there is _no_ fucking around with that tone.

“Have you, uh. Checked the news recently?”

“No. Oh God, Buck, what did you _do_?”

“Hey, nothing like you’re thinking of! I didn’t kill anyone!” Wait. “Well, I didn’t kill anyone _important_ —”

“Bucky!”

“He was trying to kill me!”

“What?”

“Okay, okay, so a bunch of HYDRA knock-offs started a new organization—”

“ _What_?”

“—and they set some freaky mutated fella on top of the World Trade Center to make a death-ray and honestly I don’t know all the technical shit behind it but there were hostages and you weren’t around so Stark called me—”

“ _WHAT_?”

It takes a couple minutes to explain everything, what with all the interruptions. By the time Bucky’s done—skimming over the whole being-blasted-off-a-building part, of course—Steve’s managed to more or less calm down a little bit.

“I can’t believe you did that. That’s why you left?”

“Yep.”

“What happened to ‘I don’t do that anymore’, huh?”

“Hey, _ouch_. I was talking about assassinating people.”

“Isn’t that basically what you did?”

“Alright, let’s get something straight, that wasn’t _people_. Come on, Stevie. You totally would’ve done the same. People were gonna die and I knew I’d be fine.” Stretching the truth to avoid Steve’s righteous anger was never a bad idea.

“I know, I know, I can’t be angry with you for that,” Steve replies, and Bucky almost pulls his phone from his face to stare at it. The hell? Since when had Steve ever recognized that he can’t be angry about something? “But I’m fucking furious with you anyway,” Steve continues, and Bucky nearly snorts. All is right in the world after all. “Jesus. So you punched him straight through the chest?”

“Yep,” Bucky replies again, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously.

“You’re awfully chipper for someone who punched a man through the chest.”

“Would’ve _loved_ to punch Red Skull through the chest, but instead I had to settle for his even uglier nephew.” He hears Steve stifle a laugh and knows he’s finally on the right track. He can feel Steve smiling with him through the phone, can practically _see_ it in his mind, amusement stretching between them. Steve had always had the prettiest smile.

“I was worried about you,” Steve admits after their moment stretches on a bit longer. Bucky’s smile fades and he remembers the ache permeating his whole body.

“I know you were.”

“Did you... You tried to call me, right?” Steve asks, and Bucky hates how unsure he sounds. How often does Steve need reassurance?

He remembers weeks ago, the way Wilson had looked at him when he’d talked about their search for him. How many times had he ducked away when he picked up on Steve coming for him? How many times had he dodged out of the line of Steve’s friendship and ran, terrified of his weak attempts at building a peaceful life being destroyed?

_He was fine the first few times. And then he wasn’t._

Bucky swallows. “Stevie, I sent you about a dozen texts. I kept calling even when I got on the quinjet.”

“Oh.” The relief is palpable. “That’s...” Steve clears his throat. “That’s good. I thought you’d just fucked off to God-knows-where without any warning.”

“C’mon, man. You really think I’d do that to you?”

Steve doesn’t answer for a moment. When he does, Bucky knows he’s lying. “Of course not. Sorry.” He clears his throat. “So, you’re just relaxing the day away in New York now?”

“Well...” Bucky hesitates. “I got a little hurt. I’m almost healed up all the way, but it should take another day or so.”

“That’s... not going to be fun for you.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve been staring at the ceiling all day, and Stark’s fucking AI won’t let me do anything other than lay here. And I gotta say, after Wakanda, all the tech in this ugly goddamn building probably isn’t even all that interesting.”

“Don’t let Tony hear you say that.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky’s sorely tempted to tell Steve that Stark can go fuck himself, but he manages not to. He knows, when he’s feeling more reasonable about everything, that Stark’s not a bad sort of guy. Hell, if he’s anything like Howard then in another world they would’ve got on like a house on fire. It’s not Stark’s fault that he hates Bucky. Hell, half the time, Bucky hates himself too. But he isn’t exactly the biggest fan of having his arm blown off and being almost murdered. “It’s nice of him to let me stay here, so I guess he gets a pass. I like his fiancée. What a classy dame.”

“Fiancée?” Steve sounds confused, then happy. “Oh, he and Pepper are back together? And they're getting _married”_

“They broke up? Wait—don’t answer, I really don’t want to know.”

“Buck, c’mon.” Steve chuckles. “Yeah, she’s great. Don’t try to steal her away from him, I know how you get about ladies like her. She’s good for him.”

“I’m not gonna _steal_ anything, she seems like she really loves the guy. I mean, I’m not sure _why_ , but...”

“Buck.”

“She’s too tall for him! The guy’s tiny!”

“Hey, c’mon!” Steve’s laughing now, and Bucky smiles wide at the sound. “Alright, I give you that, he is. _Fuck_ , he gets so mad when you point it out. I wish you’d gotten to meet Thor before he left. You woulda gotten along great.”

“Yeah, I bet.” He licks his lips. “Not angry with me anymore, then?”

“Oh, fuck you, of course I’m angry.” Goddammit. “I get why you did it, but I’d like to see how calm you can be after you cross thousands of miles to see your best pal only for him to be on the other goddamn side of the world.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Bucky tries, and gets a rude noise for his efforts.

“Don’t you placate me like I’m your hysterical wife, Barnes.”

“Aren’t you? C’mon, honey, forgive me,” Bucky teases, enjoying the chance to call Steve by the pet name a little bit too much. If Steve notices, he’s too busy rolling his eyes to comment.

“I’m gonna punch you when you get here, you goddamn jerk.”

“Aww. I’m hurt, though.”

“And whose fault is that? You couldn’t have thrown the shield? Your first thought was ‘you know what, I’m gonna punch that thing that shoots energy blasts’?”

“Look who’s lecturing who on being a reckless shit! Rogers, you contrary son of a bitch, _three separate sources_ told me that you make a habit out of jumping out of planes with no goddamn parachute. That’s not cute, it’s fucking stupid.”

“Listen here, _Barnes_ —”

The conversation kind of dissolves after that. Bucky hasn’t smiled so much since the last time he talked to Steve, and it’s worth every painful minute.

God, he can’t wait to get back to Wakanda.

★

Just as Bucky predicted, it hasn’t been the funnest couple days he’s ever had. It’d been mostly texting and watching weird TV shows with Natasha and Clint. That has its own charm, but it would’ve been a lot more pleasant if he hadn’t been dealing with his insides rearranging themselves back to their liking.

Actually, it’d been a pretty shitty time, all things considered. He could’ve spread some aloe or numbing cream over burns. With his muscles and bones knitting back together, all he could do was lay there and frown at the screen because his favorite British amateur baker wasn’t doing so hot against the competition. 

There’s still a lingering little bit of discomfort when he’s packing up, but he actively ignores it. His ride’s going to be arriving any minute, and he wants to be ready to go on the dot. It’s almost midnight there, so by the time he gets in Wakanda it’ll be right around mid-day.

His hears footsteps as he finishes zipping up his backpack.

When Bucky steps into the living area, he expects to see Natasha and Clint. Instead, he sees Stark.

There’s a moment of supremely awkward silence between them.

“So.” Stark is pointedly not looking at Bucky as he says this; what he’s doing is fiddling with his red-tinted sunglasses like they’re the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. Why the guy would wear them in the middle of the night, Bucky has no idea. There’s a big gym bag at his feet, which—looks weird, since the guy’s dressed to the nines in a three-piece designer suit that would’ve made a pre-war Bucky Barnes drool.

 “So.” Bucky’s fingers tighten and loosen around the strap of his own pack. He’s suddenly hyperaware of the shield strapped around his arm, a red-white-and-blue bulls-eye that’s practically inviting an attack.

He’s taking it with him. It’s _Steve’s_.

“Figured you might want this,” Stark replies, picking the bag up and tossing it over. Bucky catches it with a frown, zipping it open to peer inside and—

“Huh.”

“Really? That’s all you’re going to say?” Stark scoffs, all fabricated swagger as he heads over to the open kitchen area. Bucky follows slowly, a little bit dazed.

Stark had tossed him a bag full of uniforms. _Captain America_ uniforms.

“You really know how to leave a guy speechless,” Bucky says after he’s regained his bearings. Stark finally meets his eyes over the counter, and it’s to give him a supremely unimpressed face as he pours two glasses of whiskey. What with the sunglasses and the suit, it’s almost intimidating. 

“Yeah, well, I tend to have that effect.” He slides a glass over and it clinks against Bucky’s palm. “Figured that if you’re going suit up in the future, you’re going to need a suit,” Stark says like it’s nothing, raising his glass before taking a big sip. Bucky notes with vague interest that he’d poured a pretty substantial amount.

“Who says I’m gonna be suiting up again?”

“I got a feeling.” Stark’s glass hits the counter with just _slightly_ more pressure than necessary when he sets it down. “And you looked like you were about to pop a seam.”

“You callin’ me fat?”

“I’m just artfully pointing out that you do _not_ have the patriotically tiny ass of your predecessor.”

“You know pal, what with the attempted murder and now the insults to my weight, I’m beginning to think you don’t like me much.”

For all that the words should have come out joking, there’s an edge to them. Bucky can’t really help it. Stark’s artful swagger gets a little strained, a painful-looking smile twisting his mouth. They stare at each other over a moment of silence as Bucky takes a sip of his own whiskey. It won’t do anything, but it sizzles his throat in the best way.

“No, maybe I don’t.” He taps his fingers against the edge of the counter as if he’s got too much energy to burn. Or like he’s thinking of wrapping them around Bucky’s neck.

Which, really. Is understandable.

“Thanks for the suits,” Bucky replies. There’s no reason for it to turn into an argument. The very fact that Stark’s _there,_ giving him suits and sharing a drink with him, is better than he would have expected. “You have my number if anything happens. So.” He shrugs, finishing off his 90-year-old whiskey in one long gulp like the heathen he is. 

Stark doesn’t even flinch, though Bucky had been expecting hysterics. Instead, when he puts his glass down, he sees the other man staring at him intently.

Like this, Tony looks so goddamn much like Howard. Bucky swallows around the sudden lump in his throat.

“Do you really remember them?” Stark asks in the sudden silence. He doesn’t break their gaze, dark eyes fringed with even darker lashes, and _God_ , his voice comes so soft.

“I didn’t, at first,” he admits. It feels like pulling teeth. “I dreamed of it one night. Thought I was going crazy.” He swallows. “Went to a library and looked Howard up.”

After everything he’d seen and done, shocking him is hard. But knowing you took your friend’s life, that you grabbed him by the hair and bashed his face in again and again and again—

Bucky closes his eyes, ducking his face. He doesn’t _want_ to remember. Last time he did, he’d barely locked himself into the library’s bathroom before having a breakdown on the floor. Full shakes, fingers trembling as he gripped at whatever he could reach. He hadn’t been able to eat. “It was rough,” he says, voice coming hoarse. He clears his throat, feeling Tony’s eyes intent on him. “I didn’t... I’ve done so many things. But Howard was my _friend_. He...” Bucky huffs a tired laugh. “He used to show me around his lab and smack my hands whenever I tried to touch shit. He loved talking about his work and I loved seeing all of it. Match made in heaven. You know we were born the same year? I never let him live down bein’ five months younger’n me. He fucking hated that.”

All of that. All of that and more, they’d taken from him. The thought makes Bucky’s throat close up.

When he looks up, Stark’s eyes are glassy and his face is tight. 

“Sounds like you had a better relationship with him than me. Cheers, Bucko.” He smiles, and it looks more like a snarl. “Sounds like you deserved each other.” Bucky doesn’t take the bait, watching the older man for a long moment. 

He doesn’t think he’s seen a sadder person in a long time.

“I’m real sorry about your ma.” It’s a miracle that Bucky’s voice comes so calm. Stark sucks in a deep breath, but he doesn’t react otherwise.

“Yeah, I’m sorry too.”

He finishes off his drink, knuckles white against the heavy glass. 

It’s as close to a truce as they’re going to get. Bucky watches Stark’s stiff back as he walks away and doesn’t say a word, looking down at the empty glasses. This is another one of those things that nothing can fix, nothing can make better. He’s destroyed more than one family in the past seventy years, after all. It’s just funny how it never gets any goddamn fucking easier, is all.

Bucky’s still thinking about the rawness in Stark’s eyes when he gets on his plane. But it’s Natasha’s kiss that lingers on his cheek like a brand, her parting whisper of “take care of him,” echoing in his head for hours and hours.

The shield and suit weigh heavy on his back.

★★★

#### STEVE ROGERS.

“Hello?” Steve says, heart in his throat. He hadn’t believed his eyes for a second when he’d seen the name on his tiny caller ID screen, had thought he was seeing things or—something. He almost hadn’t answered before he’d scrambled to get it open and to his ear. 

“Hey, Cap. Ex-Cap? Rogers, I guess.”

Steve closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Are you drunk, Tony?” he asks calmly.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Tony snipes, then scoffs. “No, I’m not. I _wanted_ to be, falling back into bad habits and all. But Pepper made sure I wasn’t, which was awfully nice of her. She told me I should call you, so I figured why not?” He blows out a sigh like it hurts, and Steve can hear each even breath through the tinny speaker of his phone.

“How are you, Tony?” Steve asks, knowing it’s a stupid question.

“I’m _peachy_ , Steve. How’re you?” Tony scoffs and Steve closes his eyes. Grinds his teeth. Reminds himself that Tony has every right to be angry with him, that they had both been in the wrong. “Said goodbye to your boy a couple hours ago, you know. Left right at midnight on the dot.” Tony’s quiet for a moment, but Steve can _hear_ him thinking. “Was he friends with my dad?”

“Tony...” 

“Come on. Was he?”

Steve remembers how curious Bucky had been about Howard’s inventions and how much Howard had absolutely _loved_ going on and on about them to someone who would actually listen. He’d had to drag Bucky out of his lab more than once, and it’d never stuck; the two of them had always managed to regroup, cackling like schoolboys over their weapons demos. He doesn’t even want to admit it to himself, but he’d been jealous.

Steve’d never really been able to shake the feeling that after he’d turned into Captain America, Bucky had stopped looking at him like he was something special.

He clears his throat. “He was. They got on real well, always talking about some invention or the other. They couldn’t see each other that often, they were always busy, but they got on like a house on fire.” Steve sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Howard’s the only person Buck ever let touch his favorite rifle.”

“Mm. Bet he named her and everything.” 

“He did.” Steve taps his fingers against the counter. He’d been eating breakfast when Tony had called, but now the wide, clean space of the kitchen makes him feel restless. Anyone could walk in and hear this. 

“He told me,” Tony says, and his voice is softer and firmer at the same time. “That he’d been friends with my dad. I didn’t want to believe it, but I...” He makes a sound Steve can’t identify. “I can fucking see it. He probably asked FRIDAY about a million questions when he was stuck in bed. He _flirted_ with her, actually, which. Wow.”

A laugh startles out of Steve. How perfectly _Bucky_. “Sounds like him.” 

“Yeah. Yeah.” Tony sounds quieter now, missing all his jokes and swagger. Steve feels guilt tug at him a little bit.

He knows Tony hadn’t wanted all this to happen. He’d said that he was going to retire, but he’d still spent half his time at the Avengers compound even then. He’d still been inventing and working, pushing money at charities and at all the salvation efforts for Novi Sad. He’d been so fucking _unhappy_ after Ultron, Steve remembers.

And now he’s all alone. Steve opens his mouth to say something—he doesn’t know what—when Tony suddenly breaks the silence. 

“How’s the team?”

“They’re good,” Steve answers automatically. He thinks of Wanda strapped up in her straightjacket and of Clint’s sloped shoulders and he knows it’s not exactly true, even now, but even he knows that sometimes you don’t have to rub the whole, ugly truth into someone’s face. “So you’re back with Pepper, huh? Getting married, I hear. Congratulations.”

“Yeah, well, you know Saint Pepper. She heard what happened with the team and came to see me. She said she couldn’t deal with all my bullshit anymore—my words, not hers, mind you—but she still comes back when she knows I need her.”

“She’s a good woman. You’re lucky.”

“Yeah, but she’s not, is she?” There’s no humor there when Tony chuckles. “Loves me, that’s true. But I drive her so crazy, and I just can’t stop. And she asks for one thing, just one—and I can’t do it. Well.” There’s a little huff and a pause, and Steve wonders what Tony’s drinking. Whiskey, probably. He can picture it. “It’s different now, since we’re following the Accords. Well, me and Vision. Rhodey’s still... I’m almost there with the suit. So, you know. That’s better, I’m not flying all over the place all the time. Told you I thought the Accords might split the difference.”

He’s rambling now and Steve lets him. It sounds like he’s been wanting to say this to him for some time.

“And they did, and I’m happy because—because she makes it so much better, you know. So much better. Couldn’t do this without her. I don’t do much to make _her_ life easier, mind you, but it’s working. But after Ultron and now with Berlin and Siberia, and what happened to everyone...” There’s a long silence. Steve strains to hear anything, but Tony doesn’t make a single damning noise. “I was just trying to keep the team together,” he admits after a long time, like Steve hadn’t known. Like it’s a secret.

“I know, Tony.”

“Do you?” Tony scoffs. “They were all ready to follow you, Steve. They trusted you. I mean, I know why, hell, _I’d_ follow you, but I tried to do the right thing one goddamn time and in the end they were all—” He stops himself abruptly, calms his voice. “And at the end of it, everyone I was trying to protect got locked up in the middle of the ocean like criminals.” He clicks his tongue. “Sam, Clint, _Wanda_. That’s why I tried so damn hard to keep her locked in the compound, Steve. I had your voice in my head for _days_ ; _she’s just a kid, she’s just a kid_.”

“It’s not your fault, Tony.” Steve closes his eyes and leans over the counter, covering his eyes from the morning light. “You can’t carry all that. You didn’t _know_.”

“It was just like you said,” Tony mutters bitterly. “117 countries, Steve. And that’s still how it ended.”

“Best hands are still our own, Tony. They’re always going to be.”

“Are you absolutely _sure_ of that?” Tony replies, though the sarcasm falls flat when he sounds so miserable. “Because I can think of a couple instances where that didn’t exactly work out.”

“Then we’ll learn from them. And we’ll do better.”

Tony groans. “You never change, do you, old man?” 

“No, I really don’t. Us old folks’re pretty set in our ways.” Steve is quiet for a moment before he tries again. “Tony, really. You can’t take on the blame for everything. God knows I don’t think you wanted to see everyone locked up, the Accords _never_ specified that they could do that to us. I know you never would’ve said yes if you knew.”

“But you guessed.”

“Yeah.” Steve lowers his hand from his eyes, looking out at the misty early morning. He imagines the heat on his skin, the warm, wet air waiting outside. “I read over all the experiments HYDRA did on Bucky and I guess it kind of made me expect the worst.”

“The United Nations isn’t exactly HYDRA, Cap.”

“No, no... But there’re still a lot of people there. Politicians. People we don’t know, with their own agendas, their own wants. I was a tool in a propaganda machine once, you know, except back then I actually believed in the war we were fighting.” Steve scoffs, feeling an ugly old feeling bubbling up in his chest. “I have no idea what the fuck this country’s been doing since the 50s.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Greatest Generation.” Even with the snip, Tony sounds subdued. “Barnes’s taking your shield back, just so you know. It’s yours.” He doesn’t apologize further. Steve’s relieved for it.

“I don’t think I need it anymore,” he replies, surprised with how much he means it. “Maybe being Captain America was never really for me.” 

“What happened to ‘if I see a situation going south...’, then?”

“Well, that hasn’t changed.” Steve smiles slightly, remembering the fruit thief in Konginkangas. It feels like a lifetime ago already. “I don’t need to be Captain America to do my part.”

“Your boy did well in the field,” Tony says after a minute. He sounds a little reluctant, but the words ring true. “I figured you might’ve been planning your retirement now that you’re getting up in the years and all. Gave him a couple suits.” Tony clears his throat. “There’s a plain black one in there too, no spangles. Just in case.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve says, touched.

He remembers all the times he’d ignored or dismissed Tony’s attempts to make him some sort of new gadget, every time he’d rolled his eyes at him. He suddenly feels really fucking bad about that. Tony Stark just might be the loneliest person he knows—now more than ever. Steve had chosen to leave his friends and make his own lonely way through the world, after all. Tony’d had them all leave him again and again. And he might’ve deserved it, he might’ve made a million mistakes along the way, but he’s _trying_.

Even now. Steve sighs and closes his eyes, leaning his elbows heavily on the counter. “It means a lot, Tony. Really.”

“Yeah, well. I know.” Tony shuffles around for a moment before the line goes quiet. “How’m I going to get in contact with you next time something happens? That phone of yours is _shit_ , Rogers.”

“Yeah, I know. I figure I’ll be with Bucky now wherever we go, and you have his number. Maybe T’Challa will give me an old phone he was going to throw out or something.”

“Mm. So you and Barnes are going to finally drive off into the sunset, huh?”

“Well, when you put it like _that_.”

“No, no, I’m glad for you. Finally getting your happily ever after and all that.”

“Tony, come on.”

“Yeah, alright. I’m going to go to bed, Pepper’s probably waiting outside the door in case I start yelling.” Tony sighs deeply. “Take care of yourself, Rogers. I’ll see you when I do.” 

“Bye, Tony. Thanks again.”

Steve sits there for a long time afterwards, phone closed on the counter and half-eaten breakfast in front of him. He thinks about Tony and about Howard and Maria, about their fractured, scattered little team of misfits. He never doubts that he made the right choice; he knows he did. But the costs...

Well. He watches Sam wander into the kitchen and gives him a smile.

“Morning.”

“Morning,” Sam replies, smothering a yawn. He looks safe and comfortable in sweats and a t-shirt. It’s comforting. “Sleep okay?” 

“Yeah, it was a good night.” He checks the clock; it’s half-past nine. “Where’s Wanda?”

“Still sleeping. Kid likes her beauty rest,” Sam chuckles, then catches sight of Steve’s barely-touched plate and his phone. “What happened?” 

“Talked to Tony,” Steve replies. “For a while. He’s not doing so great.”

“Yeah, I figured he might not be.” Sam frowns and pours himself a glass of juice, leaning against the counter as he takes a gulp. “What’d he say?”

“Nothing really worth mentioning, we just... Hashed things out. Reached an understanding.”

“Mm.”

“Buck’ll be back soon enough. You still wanted first crack at him?”

“Hell yes I do. Disappeared in the middle of the night, the dirty bastard. But nothing’s gonna be able to save him from Wanda, girl’s gonna tear him a new one.”

“As she should.” Steve goes back to his cold breakfast, because really, it’s rude as hell to waste food in someone else’s home. “Have you been thinking about where you want to go?”

“Yeah. I actually wanted to spend more time in Africa. Sounds like you liked Egypt.”

“It was gorgeous, Sam,” Steve replies earnestly. “I mean, I didn’t spend as much time as I wanted, but it was gorgeous. All that sun, everything gold-tinted.”

“So, yeah. I’m going to stay around, see what there is to see. Wanda... Wanda wants to go back to the Balkans.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Said that she wants to go back home for a while. Misses Sokovia like hell, though she won’t admit it to anyone. Can’t say I blame her, after everything that’s happened since she left.”

“Makes sense.” Steve looks down at his cold coffee, a smile tugging at his lips. “We’re all looking for home. 

★★★ 

#### BUCKY BARNES.

He sleeps through most of the ride to Wakanda partially because he’s gotten kind of used to New York time and partially because he knows whatever lingering aches he has will be healed up fastest in sleep. He wakes up groggy but without any more pain, blinking up at the bright mid-afternoon sun.

T’Challa’s the first to greet him, mostly because he’d been near the landing pad. He greets Bucky with a firm handshake and a clap on the back, serious and mild—but the teasing comes quickly enough as they walk through the compound, because _apparently_ Bucky’s form had been a little sloppy when he’d been taking down Humpty Dumpty. 

Well. Bucky manages to get a couple cat puns in there before T’Challa leaves him to make his lunch date with his mother, laughing as he and Ayo stride away.

He texts Sam and Wanda to meet him in the living room on their floor, and the response is immediate.

**[ Wanda 12:37 ]** !!!

**[ Wilson 12:38 ]** Coming. Brace yourself, Barnes

Bucky barely has the time to set his bags down before he sees Wanda hurrying over, a wide smile on her face. Bucky grins and opens his arms for her. “You’re back!” she breathes, wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders and clinging to him. “I thought you were going to _die_ ,” she says as she pulls back, keeping her hands tight on his biceps. “You _almost_ died!”

Every now and again, Bucky forgets how young she is. But now, like this, with her long hair loose around her shoulders and the black smeared around her eyes doing nothing to hide that she’s barely an adult, he knows. He’d scared her bad.

Because he’s terrible at dealing with that knowledge, Bucky attempts to lighten the mood. “Let’s be fair, I’ve almost died a _lot_ of times in my life,” Bucky tries, and Wanda grimaces. 

“That is not funny. Next time, you will call back-up.” Her eyes glow briefly, and Bucky feels a shiver run up his spine. “This is _not_ a request.”

“Jesus, kid.” 

“James.” 

“Alright, alright. God.”

Wanda opens her mouth like she’s going to say something more—something that’s probably a lot less friendly, considering her expression—but Wilson picks that moment to show up.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he greets with a wide smile, and Bucky huffs out a laugh. He pulls back from Wanda and clasp’s Sam’s hand, accepting his smack on the back. “Looking good, man, looking good. You look almost like those war pictures of you,” he says as he pulls back. Bucky smooths his hair back from his forehead self-consciously.

“Yeah, Natasha said that it wouldn’t work under the helmet. It’s different, but it’s alright.”

“Better,” Sam confirms. “You don’t look like a killer indie singer anymore.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“I know.” Sam looks around with raised brow. “Where’s Steve? I would’ve thought he’d be neck-deep in lecturing you right around now.”

“Ah, well.” Bucky rubs the back of his neck. “Didn’t actually tell him I’d arrived. I thought I’d surprise him.”

Something flashes in Sam’s expression, something that Bucky can’t quite catch. But whatever it is, it’s something good. “He’d probably like that,” he says. Wanda stares at Sam for a moment, eyes flashing, before she nods and squeezes Bucky’s arm.

“Yes, go.” She smiles, turning to him. “I still have many things to say to you, but we only just saw you five days ago. Steve has been waiting much longer.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Much better. He was very angry with you—and us—but he is alright now.” Wanda gives Bucky a little push, surprising him. “Go.”

“Okay.” Bucky pulls back from them, glancing towards where their rooms are. “Right. See you guys in a few.”

The hallway to Steve’s room is awfully short, Bucky notices. His throat feels dry all of a sudden. Shit.

He doesn’t really have any time to get his thoughts into order, to get all his apologies straight. It’d been necessary, yeah, but it’d also been a shitty move to duck out on Steve right before he’d arrived in Wakanda. He’d made a big trip with the sole purpose to see Bucky as soon as possible, and that’s not lost on him. He doesn’t know many people who’d do that for anyone, much less him.

It’s insane to think that they’re finally going to see each other.

Bucky’s heart skips a beat.

Steve is staring out his window when he steps into the room. He doesn’t knock, eagerness overwhelming him, and the view he gets treated to is... ridiculous.

Because there Steve is, in all his glory. Dark, forgettable clothing that only makes his silhouette that much more striking against the day’s thick white jungle fog. It lights him up, brings out the gold in his hair; it makes him glow, and Bucky’s breath catches. 

Steve turns, blue eyes wide.

They stare at each other for a long moment. It feels like it stretches on and on into its own little eternity, just them looking at each other. Him standing in the shadow, Steve backlit like a goddamn angel. Bucky swallows, sliding the bags and shield from his shoulder and letting them fall to the floor. The thud breaks the silence.

“Hey, Steve.”

“ _Buck_.” Steve strides forward and folds him right up in his arms, and it’s all Bucky can do to grip him tight. Steve squeezes him back and makes a soft sound, one that swirls around again and again in his head but he can’t identify. Like a gasp. Like a choked-off sob.

Bucky buries his face in Steve’s neck and feels him shudder.

He doesn’t comment on it, just tightens his arms. Steve’s so damn big and warm and _solid_ against him. He feels so much like home in a way no other person ever had, and Bucky remembers belatedly why he’d barely touched Steve twice when they’d been reunited all those months and months ago. He’d known that if he latched on, he’d never want to let go. Steve feels _right_ in his arms, like he belongs there.

Which is ridiculous. But he still can’t bring himself to let go.

He remembers the letters he’d written and burned, the way his pencil had scratched along paper to shape words he’d never say out loud. They’d held all his biggest secrets, words on words on words he’d written from 1941 to 1945. Not a single one’d lived more than an hour before he’d slid it into the campfire or lit it up with a match just to watch it curl into black ash. He’d read them first, though, over and over, and made sure he’d memorized them. That the words rang true.

(God, once upon a time he’d been so _good_ with words.)

The guys’d thought that there’d been a girl who’d broken Bucky’s heart. They’d given him sympathetic grimaces and swigs of whiskey, had taken turns talking about their own love lives. When Steve had joined up with them, the guys talking about Bucky’s heartbreaker had made him frown. He’d looked at Bucky with hurt-puppy eyes, like he couldn’t believe that there’d been a girl he’d loved that much without telling his best friend anything about her.

Ha.

If only they’d known the secrets he’d hidden in those letters, heart-blood spilling with each scrape of his pencil on paper. Bucky remembers all of them. Every last one.

_(You’ll never know what you are to me. I don’t know that you’d even believe me if I told you..._

_Got me all twisted-up, honey. Always did.)_

Bucky realizes belatedly that his eyes are wet.

The rush of tenderness is overwhelming him, bittersweet memories closing up his throat. Bucky feels a tremble in his arms and knows that he can’t stay like that with Steve for much longer without ruining everything. He almost misses being fucked up enough that this constant hunger wasn’t thrumming right under his skin. How the hell had he survived _years_ of this before everything fell apart?

He breathes in deep, and it’s like he can taste Steve on his tongue.

Bucky shivers as he pulls back from their hug, feeling cold. Steve looks away from him immediately, hiding the way his eyes are a little red. “I’m real glad you’re back, Buck,” he says, and his voice comes deep and sure. God, Bucky loves the way the Brooklyn comes right out when Steve’s emotional. “Gave me a big goddamn scare there.”

“I know,” Bucky replies, accepting it. “Didn’t mean to.”

“Still did.”

“I know, pal.” His smile aches a bit, and Steve’s looks like it hurts—not on his face, but somewhere deeper. “I know.”

“You motherfucker,” Steve whispers fiercely, fingers twisting into the material of Bucky’s shirt as he drags him back in. Oh God. Oh God, he should pull back, but all Bucky can do is let himself get folded right back into Steve’s arms. “You mother _fu_ cker,” Steve whispers against his neck, and Bucky feels warm all the way to the tips of his toes from the way those words get whispered against the bare stretch of his collar. “Never gonna let you out of my sight again, I swear to God.”

_(You’re so pretty when you’re mad.)_

They stay like that for a long while.

★

“So. You’re the new Captain America, huh?”

An hour later, they’ve settled on Steve’s bed. Bucky’s chosen to stick to a corner, but Steve’s propped up against the headboard with a long leg spread out in front of him and one knee bent. His socked foot almost brushes Bucky’s hip. Bucky makes sure it doesn’t, because he still feels warm and off-balance from their earlier hug.

“Yeah, I guess I am. Happy retirement, I suppose? I’ll throw you a party, old man.”

“Shut up, you’re still a year older’n me.” Bucky thinks he just might die from the way Steve’s smiling at him. All of their sniping back and forth had been one thing over the phone; it’s a whole different beast when they’re looking at each other and Steve’s smiling so goddamn sweet at him.

He hasn’t believed in God since 1941, but he seriously considers sending up a couple Hail Marys. Couldn’t hurt, right?

“Only in body, never in spirit.” Steve rolls his eyes at that, and Bucky continues. “Not gonna lie, though, it’s weird as hell. Doesn’t really feel right.”

“Why’s that?”

“Other than the ridiculously tight suit? C’mon, Stevie.” Bucky shakes his head. “I ain’t Captain America, you are.”

“Nah.”

That is. Probably the least inflection he’s ever heard in Steve’s voice.

“W—that’s all you’re gonna say? _Nah_?” Bucky asks incredulously.

“Do you want me to write you a _dissertation_?” Steve asks with a laugh, tilting his head back. Bucky has no fucking idea how he can sound so happy when they’re talking about how Bucky, who is definitely not Mr. America, is inevitably going to muck up his legacy beyond repair. How is that even possible?

“You realize I stab people, right? And shoot them?”

“You really do. Often.” He sounds fond.

“And you’re not worried at all?"

“Nah.”

“... Care to _elaborate_?”

“Alright, alright. Look...” Steve’s face goes a little distant but he leans in closer, and Bucky can’t help doing the same. Lord help him, but Steve’s cheekbones are ridiculous.

This. _This_ is why he spent half his time falling in and out of infatuation with every pretty girl he met. It made ignoring what was constantly right under his nose and sweet as roses a hell of a lot easier. He is so beyond fucked up over this man, he almost wants to ask Wanda to turn his head _back_ into a blender.

_(_ _I dream of the shape of your mouth, you know that? Sometimes I think about running my fingers along it, pressing my thumb into your bottom lip.)_

“I just figure that Captain America... I don’t know. It was always a different thing than me. _Captain America_ , the guy on the silver screen telling you to buy war bonds. _Captain America_ , the cartoon character who tells you to eat your vegetables. _Captain America_ , the guy telling high school kids they gotta try hard during gym class.”

“Which is bullshit, because you nearly killed yourself a couple times in gym.”

“ _Exactly_. I dunno, Buck... It isn’t like it was during the war, when I had you and the guys and you just called me that to yank my chain. People call me Cap now and look right through me. Half the time it felt like I put on the suit and suddenly everyone’d expect me to be something I’m not, to act like the comic book character they grew up with...” Steve shrugs. “It’s not a _bad_ thing, don’t get me wrong. They mean well most of the time. But I never really cared about being Captain America, I just wanted to help people.”

“Hmm.” Bucky rests his crossed arms on his knee, leaning his chin on them. “That’s so like you. I could barely convince myself to go over there and save everyone’s asses.”

“You talk tough, but I know you’re a damn softie. You wouldn’t have let people die, Buck.”

“Thought about it, though.”

“And hey, you still picked the right thing after everything people’ve said about you and done to you. You believe what I’m saying more’n you wanna admit.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, you helped them even though it’s not like anyone deserves your help at this point, didn’t you?” Steve shrugs again and reclines back against the headboard, letting his head thunk back against the wall. “I don’t think it’s really all that much about deserve and don’t deserve as much as it’s about doing the right thing. I know you, Barnes. You always do what’s gotta be done.” He tilts his head to angle a smile at Bucky, something tired in his eyes. “You always did.”

“We talking about me torturing the other side’s soldiers and calling it the right thing?” Bucky laughs, darkly amused. “That’s a hell of a thing you just said, Cap.”

“Not Cap anymore, remember? I can say whatever the hell I want.” Something flips in his stomach at the way Steve smiles at him. Bucky licks his lips, feeling a little jolt of nervousness. “So, you gonna come out to the public soon?”

“Hm? Nope.”

“What?” Now Steve looks confused. It’s genuinely adorable.

“You think I’m gonna go around advertising to everyone and their mother that Steve Rogers abandoned them? Fuck no. No one’s gotta know I’ve taken over Cap duties ‘till something manages to rip that dumb fucking helmet off my head.” 

“You don’t gotta do that for me, Buck. C’mon. You deserve the credit.”

“It’s not about the credit, remember?” Bucky parries, and he can’t help but smile when Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m doing this because I want to. Trust me. If I can do some good—like you said—and if I can make up for...” Shit. Bucky realizes belatedly how much Steve hates that kind of talk. He shrugs and makes a general sweeping motion. “All the shit that’s happened in the meanwhile, well.”

“Buck.” Steve’s looking at him with those goddamn soulful eyes. Someone could drown in them, they’re so fucking wide and blue. “You think you owe me something?” he asks, quiet and firm.

“Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yeah, I do. I think I owe you pretty much everything. And _don’t—_ ” He raises a hand and waves Steve off before he can start protesting, already sitting up from the headboard and gearing up for a long argument. “I don’t wanna talk about it, okay? We’ve already done that, and I don’t want you telling me a thousand times over how it’s not my fault.” 

Just because it’s not doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel guilty. Steve snaps his mouth shut and nods after a tense moment, ducking those eyes of his. Bucky’s grateful as all hell for it. 

And he really can’t take this kind of talk anymore. He’s so sick of going around in circles.

He searches for a conversation topic that’ll hopefully manage both to cheer Steve up and to take his mind completely elsewhere. Bucky really doesn’t want to be feeling any unwelcome sad-puppy looks aimed at his back in the near future. “So. Natasha told me some interesting stuff while we were getting all buddy-buddy over cooking shows.”

Steve looks disproportionately alarmed. Bucky seriously wonders what the redhead _knows_ , because last time he saw that expression it was because he’d whispered the word ‘fondue’ in Steve’s ear after a very informative night out with Howard. 

“What did she _say_?”

“Just that you met up with that pretty blond girl of yours back in Europe.” Bucky smiles wide and toothy, just because he can. There’s no feeling in it. Seeing Steve kiss that woman in Berlin had been goddamn terrible. 

Instead of getting that shy smile he did last time he had a girl worth talking about, Steve groans. “It was bad. I almost talked to her about the _weather_.” 

“What the hell? Why—why’d you wanna talk about the _weather_? Was it thunderstorming? Raining baseball-sized hail?”

“No,” Steve replies miserably. “Sun was shining like a motherfucker.”

“... That’s a new low, even for you.”

“Even for—hey!” 

“Don’t even pretend it’s not true, Rogers, c’mon.” Steve rolls his eyes and huffs, but seems to concede the point. Bucky watches him for a moment. “So... It was really that bad, huh?”

“Yeah.” Steve looks down at his hands. For all that Steve’s over six feet of muscle with a hair-trigger temper, he’s still a big old softie on the inside. He looks like a kid right then, lost and upset. Bucky feels his heart do a sad little twist in his chest. “It’s actually... I mean, it’s pretty bad. I feel like a son of a bitch just thinking about it.”

“C’mon. What happened?” Bucky probes. He doubts it’s anything all that bad in anyone’s book but Steve’s.

“I... Goddammit, Buck.” Steve’s mouth twists unhappily and he looks away. “I was sitting with this nice girl, and all I could do was stare at her and try to find Peggy. She’s her niece, you know? And I thought that I liked her for her and that I was handling it like a normal person, and then I realize that I’ve been sitting there, zoning out, thinking about all the ways they look nothing alike. And the worst part is, I’m _disappointed_. I know Peggy’s gone, but I’m still trying to find her in Sharon.”

“... Well.” He doesn’t really know where to start with that. Not least because he’s never tried to date the niece of his long-lost love. “When did Peggy die?”

“What?” Steve’s brow furrows. “Day before everything happened. With all of us.”

“Oh. That’s shitty timing, man.” A beat. The realization sinks in. “ _Oh_. And, wait, when you kissed her—”

“That was our first kiss, yeah.”

“Did you meet her at the funeral?” Bucky asks, confused. He’s surprised to see Steve flush under his gaze, going from regular Steve-toned to a tomato’s stunt double in just a few seconds.

“Uh, no. I’ve known her for years. I learned she was Peggy’s niece at the funeral.”

Bucky stares at Steve. Steve stares resolutely at his hands, expression solemn but cheeks bright pink.

“ _Pal_.” It’s that same tone Bucky’s used since they met to tell Steve he’s done something _really fucking stupid_ , all the weight of his judgment boiled down to one carefully-delivered syllable. 

“I know. I _know_ , alright? It was bad timing.”

“Steve, did you ever even like the girl to begin with?” Bucky asks, and Steve looks up at him then, offended. “She’s pretty, yeah, and not just anyone has the guts to kick me in the face, so she’s got my vote, but...” He shakes his head. “If you’ve known her for years but you only made a move just now...”

“I _do_ like her,” Steve insists, defensive. “I wouldn’t lead someone on like that. I wouldn’t lead _Sharon_ on like that.”

“But you said you fucked up the date." 

“I did. I... Yeah, I did.” Steve sighs and rubs at his face. Bucky waits for him to elaborate, but no dice.

“Because...?”

Steve gives him a dirty look for the patronizingly leading question, but acquiesces anyway. “Because... I was looking for something that felt like home, and I thought I’d find it with her. I didn’t. I thought it’d be different, but then I... I spent the whole time I was with her looking for ghosts. She doesn’t deserve that.”

“Well said.” Bucky shakes his head. He tries to keep his voice light, though that’s probably one of the most depressing damn things he’s ever heard come out of Steve’s mouth. “Not gonna see her again, then?”

“No, no. I apologized for how shitty I was. Obviously I didn’t tell her the _full_ story, but you know.” Steve rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly. “I thought it’d be for the best.”

“Well well, look at you.” Bucky forces a smile. “Just turned the tender age of 98 and you finally know how to talk to a lady. There’s some hope for you yet, Rogers.”

“Shut the hell up, Barnes.” 

He’s smiling, though. That’s what matters.

_(That smart mouth you’ve got on you, lord in heaven above. It brings me to my knees, sweetheart.)_

★★★ 

#### STEVE ROGERS.

“You know what I haven’t done in a long time?” Bucky asks him, and Steve glances up from his sketchbook.

“Sat still and kept your mouth shut for more’n twenty minutes?” he hazards. Bucky hides a smile.

“I haven’t _danced_ , smartass,” Bucky replies, and Steve smiles to himself. He shakes his head and goes back to outlining the shape of Bucky’s arm where it’s bent on the bed, elbow sharp and long fingers tangled absentmindedly through his own hair. It’d been the sweetest torture to sketch him like this once upon a time, Steve remembers. Still is.

But back then, Bucky had been twitchy and had always wanted to bounce up and go _do_ something. Now, for all that Steve mocks him, he’s quiet and still, all the energy coiled up deep inside of him. He lounges like a jungle cat, all loose limbs that belie how quick he could jump up and snap a man’s neck.

This is he first thing he’s said in verging on two hours. Steve’s finished two other sketches in the meantime, picking different angles in the room to catch him from. Bucky’s gorgeous from all of them.

(Steve misses the hair, though. He’d really liked it.) 

“That’s too bad,” he says, and smiles when Bucky throws him a pointed look. “No, really. I mean it.” He looks down at his sketchbook, pencil idling. “What about France?” he suggests quietly.

“Not the biggest fan,” Bucky replies.

“Bullshit, you loved Dernier.”

“Well, yeah, but that was _Dernier_. He was the best.”

“I’m just saying, I’m sure there’s dancing in France. Somewhere by he sea, maybe.”

“France’s expensive,” Bucky mumbles, stretching his arms above his head in a slow, leisurely motion. It pulls tight at all the powerful muscles of his body, a feast for Steve’s eyes for a long moment as Bucky _groans_ —

And then he relaxes, falling right back into his previous position. Steve stares down pointedly at his sketchpad, feeling heat prickle up the back of his neck. Fuck. “We’ll get jobs,” he offers with a shrug. “You’re overthinking everything.”

“I feel like there’s something seriously wrong with a world where _you’re_ telling me to live in the moment and _I’m_ telling you to be practical,” Bucky notes. Steve snorts.

“You’ve been the practical sort for a while now,” Steve notes. Bucky shrugs with his whole body.

“That’s true.” He’s quiet for a long moment, thoughtful. “There’s dancing in France, huh?”

“Probably. I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s dancing everywhere, but maybe not the kind you like.” 

“Yeah, I’ve seen how the kids dance these days. Not for me.” Bucky smiles wryly. “Woulda loved that once upon a time, though.”

“Getting old?”

“Maybe.” Bucky watches Steve with luminous eyes. “Wanda _did_ say we should go to France. I trust the kid’s judgment.”

(They’d gathered together in the kitchen a few hours ago after dinner to talk about where they were thinking of going. Wanda and Sam were pretty set, but Bucky and Steve hadn’t agreed on what they wanted. Naturally, the other two had taken the chance to offer suggestions.

“I mean, you can go pretty much anywhere with that haircut and the cloaking ability Shuri added to your arm,” Sam had noted. “And if anyone stops you, tell them you’re on your honeymoon.”

Steve had _glared_.

“Paris,” Wanda had said with certainty around a mouthful of ice cream, “you should go to Paris. I have always wanted to see it,” she’d sighed.

“Or Greece,” Sam had suggested. “It’s sunny, and a hell of a lot cheaper.”

“I always wanted to go to Hawaii,” Bucky had grumbled, prodding at his sorbet.)

“What about your sunshine?” Steve asks.

“I mean, it’s a hassle to go to any island by boat. I hate boats. And there’s sunshine everywhere.” He looks up towards the ceiling. “I don’t remember _you_ liking France.”

“Well, France during the war was different.”

“Is the Moulin Rouge still around?”

“Buck.” Steve sighs. “Yes. They made a movie about it.”

“Documentary?”

“Musical.”

“Huh.”

They’re quiet for a long time then. Bucky closes his eyes and Steve fleshes out his features, capturing his high cheekbones and the shape of his mouth. He maybe spends a little too long on the mouth, actually.

He’s following the way the folds of Bucky’s pants lead down to his bare feet when his voice cuts through the quiet.

“Would you dance with me?” Bucky asks, and his voice is awfully soft.

Steve blinks away from his drawing, looking over at the man on the bed. Bucky’s watching him curiously, silent and unmoving. “You know I’m terrible,” he dodges, because he doesn’t want to admit how much he’d like to dance with Bucky. He’d like it a lot.

“You’re not. You catch on fast.” Bucky smiles. “I remember.”

Every time he says those two words, it feels like a shot to the heart. Steve smiles a little.

“Yeah, you used to try to teach me in our living room. I’d like to remind you how that went, by the way.”

“C’mon, you stepped on me only a couple’a times, but that was mostly because I was trying to show you how to do the fella’s part. It felt weird.” Bucky tilts his head a bit, hair brushing along the pillow. It looks awfully soft. “I can lead.”

“Alright,” Steve replies helplessly, setting his pad and pencil aside. How’s he going to say no to that? “You got music?”

“Yeah. Sam was poking around this thing for me the other week,” Bucky mutters, finally falling out of his carefully-crafted elegant disarray to slide the phone from his pocket. “Filled it up with a bunch of music and set it up so it can connect to the speakers.” He pokes around at something for a while before making a victorious noise and sitting up. Soft music begins to fill the room—maybe fifties or sixties, he’s not sure, but it’s pretty as hell.

Steve clears his throat and stands, feeling big and gormless as Bucky slides over to him. He moves easy and fluid, and there’s a smile in his eyes when he takes Steve’s hand and touches his back. His heart is pounding when he settles his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, and then they’re moving.

“S’a slow song, you’ll be fine,” Bucky assures Steve when his stiffness becomes obvious. Steve nods distractedly and tries to sneak a glance down at their feet to see what to do, but Bucky just gives him a little shake. “Nah, that doesn’t work. Just relax, alright?”

Easier said than done. He’d been a hell of a lot more relaxed with his sketchbook.

Still, he tries. He loosens up his movements, thinking about how naturally fighting comes, and it helps. “You’re doing good,” Bucky murmurs, and Steve stifles a smile. He wants to enjoy the moment; lets the reassurance wash over him, getting lost in the warmth of Bucky’s eyes.

“ _At laaaast_...” The singer croons. It feels like a sign.

The lyrics hit too close to the feelings he’s been hiding for the better part of a century. If he had a bit more confidence, maybe he would have taken that moment to lay it all out. It’s the perfect chance, what with the song and dance and Bucky’s grey-blue eyes watching him from inches away. He knows that Bucky wouldn’t push him away for it. Maybe he’d even be alright with it. (Maybe he’d kiss him.)

It’d be like a moment from a movie or something. Steve lets himself imagine as the seconds tick by, picturing the joy on Bucky’s face and the way he’d close his eyes and lean in.

But. But, this isn’t a movie. 

So instead he tries his best to follow Bucky’s lead, letting himself enjoy the way the warm metal of Bucky’s left hand feels against his palm. He’s rewarded when Bucky murmurs another quiet, “you’re doing good” and leans his head against Steve’s shoulder. He sucks in a quiet breath at that, lost with the music. Bucky’s breath is warm on his collar and it sends a shiver down his spine. 

“Thanks, Buck,” he whispers as the music winds down. Bucky goes to pull away, and Steve finds himself blurting out—“Buck, d’you—d’you wanna go another song?”

For a moment, his heart freezes at the way Bucky looks at him.

Then a smile breaks across his face and he nods, the next song starting up on its own. “Yeah, Stevie. Yeah, I’d like that.” It’s _jaunty,_ fuck, Steve’s bad with fast songs, but he doesn’t say a single word because Bucky’s already pulling him right back in. “C’mere,” he says fondly, pulling Steve back into his arms like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

And it is, it really is, at least for Steve. They aren’t as close as before, not pressed together as intimately as the singer’s deep voice filled the room. It’s faintly familiar but no one he can really place, so he just lets his mind go blank as Bucky leads him through some moderately-paced footwork that threatens to make him stumble. He feels Bucky’s eyes on his face as he’s walked through the open floorspace of the room but he doesn’t turn, trying to count the steps to figure out what the hell he’s doing. He looks up for a second and sees something on Bucky’s face that makes his breath catch, that makes him want to stop—

—Until the band kicks in and Bucky suddenly laughs in delight, the moment shattering. He steps them apart into a two-hand hold and Steve has no idea what’s happening before he’s swinging his left hand over Steve’s head, and—Steve’s throat goes dry when Bucky’s chest presses to his back, his arms crossed at the waist to hold Bucky’s hands. A sweetheart hold, something he’d seen Bucky do with his girls a thousand and one times in the dance halls. How is this _fair_?

He’s stumbling through his movements for a second before he manages to match Bucky’s steps, heart pounding wildly in his chest as he feels Bucky lean in closer. “There you go,” he murmurs near Steve’s ear, low and intimate, and—

Bucky spins him back into their starting position, and Steve freezes.

Because there Bucky is, watching him with eyes that look like molten silver and the sweetest smile Steve’s ever seen on his face, and he suddenly wonders if he’d been missing something really obvious for a while.

He thinks back to all their moments together, the hours-long phone conversations and the way Bucky had tucked his face into his collar days ago. He thinks of Bucky spread out on his bed like an offering, still and sweet with his eyes trained on Steve’s face.

He thinks of Bucky putting on the Captain America suit and nearly killing himself for him.

Maybe—just maybe—

“Steve?” Bucky asks, making Steve realize they’re still standing there in the middle of the room. They’d stopped dancing when his world had suddenly stopped turning, years and years of want boiling down to one single moment. He’s squeezing Bucky’s hands tight and he immediately loosens his hold, forcing a smile on his lips. Because Bucky looks just shy of  _terrified_ , and Steve can't have that. Not right now, not now.

“Yeah?” Steve murmurs, before realizing that he probably needs to explain himself. He clears his throat and forces a smile, a giddy little laugh catching itself in his throat. “Sorry, you just surprised me. That was fun,” he says pointedly, finally letting go of Bucky’s hands as their song dwindles away. Another one starts but he ignores it, feeling too big in his skin. “Wasn’t expecting _that_ , but it was fun.”

“Yeah? Glad to hear it. Maybe dancing doesn’t deserve the bum rap you gave it all of eighty years ago, huh?” Bucky looks oddly relieved, and Steve feels another little burst of excitement. He watches the panic fade from Bucky’s eyes and smiles encouragingly. “You move well,” he adds, voice a little off, still a little low, and Steve feels a lick of heat right up his spine. Jesus fuck. “Better’n you used to, I mean. Been practicing?”

“I wish, but I haven’t exactly had too many partners,” Steve replies self-deprecatingly. “You saw what happened with Sharon.” 

“Millions of women in the world half in love with you already, and you don’t even bother,” Bucky mocks, and Steve almost laughs right then. He’s not looking for any women.

“Guess I’ve just been waiting on the right partner,” he replies, thinking of Peggy and smiling for the first time in a long while.

Because how many people’re lucky enough to find not one, but two great loves in their lives?

★

Steve very, very much wants to attack Bucky immediately, but he forces himself not to be an idiot about it. It’s one thing to jump off airplanes and take on an entire armed STRIKE team in a tiny glass elevator with nothing but his shield; it’s another to fuck around with something as serious as his and Bucky’s relationship for the forseeable future. 

If he makes a wrong move, the best case scenario is that Bucky forgives him for his attraction and stays his best friend anyway. The worst case scenario is that Bucky’s disgusted and never speaks to him again.

But if he makes a _right_ move... 

Well, that thought keeps him up at night more than the other ones.

★

It’s been a few days.

Steve’s never been a patient man, but then again the stakes have rarely been so high for him. Peggy had made it clear more or less early on how she felt about him, and that was that; he’d kept that knowledge tucked to his heart, and had made it clear that he was going to marry her the moment the war ended. 

This situation is different. He’s still not totally sure that Bucky feels the same, but now he’s started paying more attention than he ever has to the other. 

Bucky doesn’t touch people much. He lets Wanda and Sam come to him, accepts the claps on the back or the way Wanda curls herself up against his side when they’re all watching a movie late at night. But he almost never reaches out to someone first, and his eyes always track the hands coming for him as though assessing for threats. Steve doesn’t think he knows he does it. He gets the feeling Bucky’s doing his best to settle back into his old skin, and that he doesn’t realize just how much the Soldier shines through sometimes.

It’s alright. Steve loves him regardless.

Especially because the only person Bucky _does_ touch is him. It’s never too much, but it’s there. A hand on his elbow, a touch to his back. One time, Bucky’d slung an arm around him on the couch and Steve had just about died—he wouldn’t have thought much of it if he hadn’t had this _theory_ in the back of his mind every moment they were together and lots of extra moments in-between.

And sometimes, sometimes, Bucky looks at him a certain way. There’s a softness to his eyes, an ease at the corners of his mouth. Steve’s never been the best at reading all of those secret little in-between expressions that people like Natasha and Bucky like to make, but he’s beginning to get wise.

And today. Today he’s going to do it.

He’s going to work it into their conversation, slow and smooth the way that he knows Bucky would have once upon a time. He wants it to be perfect, yeah, but he doesn’t think he can wait much longer without going absolutely balls-to-the-wall fucking crazy.

So yeah. He’s going to do this.

He’s still giving himself an internal pep talk when Bucky shuffles in from his bedroom, hiding a yawn with his metal hand. The chrome glints at Steve in the morning light and he sends a smile Bucky’s way. 

“Morning,” he greets, and Bucky grunts in response. Never a morning person.

It’s stupidly endearing.

Steve’s rose-tinted glasses are smushed so hard onto his face that he’s getting a little sick with himself. He needs to talk to Bucky about it just so that he can go back to acting like a normal person and not a lovesick fool, if nothing else.

“You’re dressed,” Bucky grunts as he sits down next to Steve.

Lord have mercy. He’s wearing sweatpants.

It takes Steve a moment to answer, because his throat’s gone dry and the thing he’d been trying hard not to think about for—well, _forever_ —is that Bucky’s...

Fuck, but Bucky’s big. Steve’s never felt inadequate, even before the serum, but Bucky’s _big_. He’s caught little glances over the years, enough to fuel the absolute most secret and illicit of his fantasies since he was a teenager. Steve used to look sometimes, whenever he thought he wouldn't get caught. He'd trace the shape with his eyes, whatever he could see through Bucky's trousers.

But now Bucky likes to wear sweatpants when he's walking around and they're a hell of a lot thinner than the slacks he used to wear, and Steve... Steve's been doing his best not to go crazy. He wonders how much bigger Bucky gets when he wants someone, how it would feel to have those strong arms around him and Bucky pressing big and hot and insistent against his hip—

“Steve? You heading somewhere?” Bucky’s voice shakes Steve from his reverie and he coughs, shaking his head sharply.

Dear God. He's gotta get it together.

“No, just got up early. Already ate.” No point in lounging in pajamas. He’d wanted to look decent for this, which is—stupid. Bucky’s seen him dressed and undressed and sick and bloody, so he probably doesn’t care much what Steve looks like, but he’d wanted to try. He’s wearing jeans and a tight white shirt that stretches pretty eye-catchingly over his arms, and he feels confident. Or, well. As confident as he can get when he’s so fucking nervous. 

“You’n your early mornings,” Bucky mutters fondly, reclining deeper into the couch. “S’disgusting.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us like letting half the days pass us by. I didn’t say nothin’ back on the weekends when you were working 12 hours straight at the docks, but now all you do is sit around and text Clint.”

“Hey, I almost _died_ a few days ago.” Bucky’s lazy smile is awfully pretty. Steve’d like to wake up to it.

“Only you could say that and smile, you fucking crazy person,” he says with disapproval, scooting closer to punch Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky laughs and catches his wrist, and _fuck_ , how had Steve never seen this in all their years of knowing each other? 

“I figure some things’re worse than death,” Bucky replies, letting go of Steve’s wrist slowly. His smile fades, but he doesn’t look sad. “Lived through it. Though I wonder, sometimes, if it’d been worse for you.” 

“How d’you figure?” Steve asks, all plans put on hold to make sense of that absolutely ridiculous statement. He remembers the folder Natasha had given him, full of all kinds of grisly shit he doesn’t like to remember. It’d made him _cry_ , to see Bucky spread out on cold tables and cut apart like meat. They’d tried to do all sorts of shit to him, but none of it took; his body healed itself as stubbornly as Steve’s did, not a single scratch on him to show all the wear and tear he’s been through. 

All there is, Steve notes, is the nasty scarring around Bucky’s arm. He imagines that his body’d tried to reject it time and time again fighting to heal the raw flesh and bone connected to the metal. What a cruel thing.

“I didn’t remember anything,” Bucky replies serenely, shrugging. “You remembered everything.”

“Buck...” He doesn’t know what to say to that.

“I remember now, but I didn’t remember much between wipes. I knew I was always _angry_ , at least by the time I got shipped back to the States, but that’s because they didn’t know how to handle me. No trigger-book for them.” He smiles humorlessly. “But I wasn’t depressed, or alone, or lonely. Just really lost and angry. And they gave me targets to take it out on, so.” He tilts his head, and his expression is clear like this isn’t one of the grisliest things Steve’s heard from him. “I didn’t have anyone to mourn.” 

“I don’t...” This really isn’t how he’d planned on their morning going. “I don’t know what to say to that.” 

“You don’t gotta say anything,” Bucky replies easily. He smiles, then yawns again, like this is an everyday conversation. “You know what I noticed?”

“What?” Steve asks, already a little lost. This isn't how he'd wanted the conversation to go.

“You used to like to keep to yourself a lot, ‘n I remember I’d always have to drag you outta the apartment and out.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really agree with your idea of a good time,” Steve mumbles. Bucky shrugs.

“Maybe. But the funny thing is that now I’m the one who likes bein’ alone and you’re the one who doesn’t.” 

“You wanna be alone?” Steve asks, his pulse stuttering.

“No, no. I didn’t say that. You know I wanna be with you.” It feels like his heart starts working properly again. “But I spent a couple years alone figuring myself back out again, you know. I had to get comfortable being alone with my thoughts, and that meant making sense of them. There were some really bad nights, I...” He hesitates. “I had to work through those.” He looks at Steve then, thoughtful, getting back out of his head. “I think you’ve been bottling up a lot of shit, Stevie.”

Steve shifts on the couch, frowning. “What makes you think that?”

“I dunno. The look on your face sometimes, I guess. You go somewhere else.” He’s watching Steve with those blue-grey eyes of his luminous in the morning light, and Steve feels—he feels— “Where do you go?” 

“I’m right here,” Steve replies.

“For now,” Bucky replies with a little smile. “Feel like you’re gonna disappear on me any second, go back to your wandering. How much of the world’ve you traveled in the past few months, Stevie?” he asks gently.

Steve stops thinking.

He leans across the space between them on the couch to touch his lips to Bucky’s. He catches his top lip at first but shifts a bit when Bucky gasps against his mouth, righting the kiss so that their mouths fit together just right. Bucky’s left hand is cool against his bicep and his lips’re even softer than Steve had ever imagined, and they’re parting under his kiss. Sweet and pliant, like he never would’ve believed, and Steve’s head is spinning.

He pulls back to press their foreheads together. He doesn’t realize that he’s panting until he starts to speak. “I crossed half of it to come to you,” he whispers into the fragile silence, his palm splayed over Bucky’s chest. "It's always been you."

Bucky's heartbeat is wild and erratic through the thin cotton of his tank top, and when Steve pulls back, his eyes are wide.

“Steve...” he breathes, like he can’t believe it. Steve smiles, leaving his hand where it is. Bucky’s skin is warm, and he likes knowing he can make his pulse race. He feels fucking _serene_ , like nothing can touch him in this moment. Not when Bucky's looking at him like he's made of gold.

“I always wanna come home to you, Buck,” he says, soft.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky whispers, his voice cracking. “ _Sweetheart_.”

His mouth is hot on Steve’s when he pushes back, vibranium fingers gripping his arm and flesh fingers twisting through his hair, and, oh, he’s wanted this for so long. He’s wanted this since he knew how to want, and Bucky’s mouth is still more perfect than any daydream his imagination had ever conjured up.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky whispers again into his mouth, and Steve shivers all over.

★★★

#### STEVE ROGERS AND BUCKY BARNES. 

The night is hot and long and Bucky’s mouth is still perfect. It makes Steve sigh and twist his hands through the sheets. Bucky smiles down at him, and it's wicked. They need to be up early in the morning, they already packed their bags and got ready to go, but there’s no saying no to that mouth.

It’s trailing its way along his collar, idle, because there’s no rush. Steve feels hot all over, curving his leg back around Bucky’s hips to keep him close. He’s not allowed to leave, not anymore. 

“I wrote you letters during the war,” Bucky whispers against Steve’s sternum. His body’s heavy, skin still sweat-slick as he mouths his way towards another round. "Burned them all." He knows Steve can take it, knows Steve’s hot for it from the way he squirms. Steve just runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair, eyes falling shut. He licks his lips and tastes them both. Bucky’s hot and thick already when he brushes up against his thigh, still slick from last time. 

Yeah, Steve wants it. That’s real good.

“What’d they say?” he asks, breath catching when Bucky’s mouth catches on his nipple. He’s sensitive, aching in the best way. He makes a soft little sound, wanting. Bucky smiles again, knees digging into the bed as he leans up to whisper in Steve’s ear. He’s grabby, possessive, the hot metal of his hand biting into Steve’s thigh. 

God, Steve wants Bucky back inside him.

“Everything,” he replies, his voice low, low, low.

★

The sun breaks out over the horizon and they’re still not asleep, but they’re finally resting. Bucky watches as the lazy light creeps into their room, catching on Steve’s lashes and the gold in his hair.

“You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” Bucky murmurs, fingers drawing swirls across the blond’s shoulder blade.

Steve smiles.

“Always.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to end this differently, but according to my beta:
> 
> [6/20/17, at 1:59 PM] Jackie: look they've suffered enough let them fuck
> 
> feel free to talk to me on [tumblr](http://realmythology.tumblr.com/)!


	4. EPILOGUE: (Oh I love my lover and where he goes...)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's unsent letter fragments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be in the last chapter, but really, it had gotten long on its own and there was no room for it. but buck's letters had already been written weeks ago, so i figured i should go ahead and share them anyway. <3

You’ll never know what you are to me. I don’t know that you’d even believe me if I told you, you cynical fuck, not even if I ripped my heart out of my chest and slapped it into your hand. “This is yours,” I’d say, and you’d look at me like I was crazy, and say, “did you hit your head?” Ha-ha. Or maybe you’d punch me. I think I’d deserve it, because a fucked-up part of me’d maybe like it a little. You’re so pretty when you’re mad.

Got me all twisted-up, honey. Always did.

★

I’m glad you’re not here. I miss you like hell, but that’s alright. I just see the way the Europe we heard about growing up as kids looks like a ruin, and I think it’d break your heart. I’m so sorry about France, not because I care about the French, but because I know hearing about the Louvre broke your heart a little bit. Everything falls apart.

I see kids barely old enough to enlist getting cut down, and I think of you. They’d snuff your fire out so fast, and I’m so happy you’re home. Stay there, stay safe. I’ll find my way back to you.

★

I think I’m going crazy. All it is is dirt and destruction and death. We don’t make a fucking difference. Why did you want to be here so bad? I don’t care about fighting someone else’s war. Do you miss me, sweetheart? God knows I’m missing you. Now more than ever. I wanna be home with you. I wanna see my ma. I wanna see my dad. I wanna see my sisters. I wanna see you. I wanna see you so bad.

Oh god. I don’t think I’m ever gonna see you again. You’re an ocean away and I’m never gonna see you again.

★

I dream of the shape of your mouth, you know that? Sometimes I think about running my fingers along it, pressing my thumb into your bottom lip. That smart mouth you’ve got on you, lord in heaven above. It brings me to my knees, sweetheart. God, but I wanna go down on my knees for you.

★

I miss you. I miss you. I’m going to die, and I miss you.

★

I never stay in one place too long anymore, always moving here and there. Nothing feels really real sometimes, but death, death feels real. Always in the corner of my eyes, waiting to get at me. But until then we keep moving camps, keep going where they tell us to. I feel like one of those wandering gypsies, nothing to my name. Itinerant, a guy in my unit says. He’s a smart type, you’d like him.

That’s all we are right now, itinerants. Making circles, following orders, never stopping. Never stopping till the day a bullet in our brain stops our wandering.

★

I’m sorry I never told you. I’m a fucking coward, but I never would’ve done anything to lose you. And now you’ll never know. It’s probably for the best, and I’ll still love you after I’m gone. It’ll be buried with me when I go under the ground, hidden deep in my bones where it’s been since the day I first saw you. Maybe flowers’ll grow from me, pulling everything else out of my flesh until I’m nothing but those bones, nothing but all the love I got for you. That’ll last forever, I know it.

★

Sometimes I thought that I should tell you, that maybe you feel the same. I saw you looking at me with those eyes of yours and I wondered, you know. But now you look at that pretty English bombshell of yours with those eyes, and I’m glad I kept my trap shut. It would’ve been a mistake, and I’d hate not being best man at your wedding. You’re gonna marry that girl, I just know it.

I’m happy for it, Stevie. She deserves you. I doubt I ever did.

★

I never loved anything in my life the way I love you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short sequel may or may not be underway. that short sequel may or may not include the three smut scenes i cut for the sake of proper storytelling.
> 
> feel free to talk to me on [tumblr](http://realmythology.tumblr.com/)!


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